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A former Democratic school board member managed to eke out a victory against his Republican challenger to allow his party to maintain razor-thin control of the Pennsylvania House during a special election on Tuesday.
According to multiple reports, Jim Prokopiak held off a challenge from GOP candidate Candace Cabanas in the Bucks County seat located in a suburb of Philadelphia, which has been trending blue in recent election cycles.
“Prokopiak’s election to the Bucks County seat will give Democrats a 102-100 majority in the House, which they have sought to defend in four special elections in the past year. A Republican lawmaker’s resignation last week shifted the power back to Democrats, and Prokopiak’s win kept it in place,” The Associated Press reported.
Prokopiak “will replace former state Rep. John Galloway, who resigned to serve as a magisterial judge. Cabanas has said previously she plans to run again during the general election,” the AP noted further.
The Democrat said in a statement: “What I heard from voters is that Bucks County residents need help supporting their families, want control over their own bodies, and ensure they have the ability to chart their own paths in life. I’m committed to taking my conversations with voters to Harrisburg and making their dreams a reality.”
The AP added:
While campaigning, Prokopiak, 49, said his goals as a lawmaker aligned with the party’s larger ambitions since they retook the chamber—more money for K–12 education, preserving access to abortions and a higher minimum wage.
Democrats have kept all six seats that have gone up for special elections in the past year, in mostly reliably Democratic districts. Prokopiak will represent a seat that has favorably elected Democrats in past election cycles.
“No one can afford to live on the federal minimum wage in this area,” he said. “If we’re going to be talking about good-paying jobs and creating life-sustaining jobs, the first thing we have to do is raise the minimum wage because it’s clear that is not sustaining anybody.”
As is the case with most other Democrats, Prokopiak did not address how business owners in his district and throughout the state were supposed to compensate for the additional wages they would be forced to pay employees.
The race garnered national attention from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which allocated $50,000 to safeguard the party’s majority in the chamber.
The expenditure marked the committee’s initial step in its plan to allocate a record budget of at least $60 million for statehouse races across the country in this cycle. The committee’s focus will be on diminishing GOP majorities in Arizona and New Hampshire, as well as the Pennsylvania Senate, while maintaining the slight Democratic majorities achieved in 2022 in Minnesota and Michigan.
“This victory is a promising sign for Democrats up and down the ballot this year – it’s clear that momentum is on our side,” Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams claimed in a statement.
Millions of Americans, many of whom are Pennsylvanians, may view that as wishful thinking because President Joe Biden’s inflationary economic policies are hurting their financial situation.
Voters in another big, important swing state—Wisconsin—told pollsters earlier this month that they trust Donald Trump far more with handling and growing the economy than Biden.
According to the Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey, 94 percent of registered voters said the economy will be a “very” or “somewhat” important factor in their decision for president.
According to the poll, 32 percent of registered voters believed that the national economy was moving in the right direction, while 68 percent thought it was on the wrong track.
In terms of trusting who would be better to handle the economy, 52 percent of registered voters said they would trust former President Trump more, 32 percent chose President Joe Biden, and 15 percent said neither, WISN reported.
