Democrats hold Pennsylvania state House with special election win

The Democratic Party will re-take control of the state house in battleground Pennsylvania after securing an additional seat in a special legislative election on Tuesday that grabbed national attention.

Democrat Dan Goughnor, a police officer, won out over Republican Charles Davis, a fire chief, in a landslide 63-to-35-point victory in a district southeast of Pittsburgh.

And Democrats appear to be headed for victory in a special election to fill a vacant GOP-controlled state Senate seat on the other side of Pennsylvania. But the GOP, which held a 27-22 advantage in the state Senate heading into the election, will keep their majority in the chamber.

The Pennsylvania State House had been deadlocked, with Republicans and Democrats both controlling 101 seats prior to Tuesday’s election.

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Democrats had lost their razor-thin majority in January after the death of state Rep. Matt Gergerly.

The House race is the fifth straight special election that Democrats have won so far in 2025, despite the party performing dismally in public opinion polling since losing control of the White House and Senate, and failing to win back the House majority in the 2024 elections.

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The party’s favorable rating sank to all-time lows in separate national polls conducted this month by CNN and NBC News. Those numbers followed a record low for Democrats in a Quinnipiac University survey in the field in February. 

Additionally, the latest Fox News National poll, which was released last week, indicated that congressional Democrats’ approval rating at 30%, near an all-time low. And Democrat activists are irate over their party’s inability to blunt President Donald Trump’s agenda.

While Democrats were heavily favored in Tuesday’s state House race, they had less of an advantage in the state Senate race, in a district Trump carried by 15 points last November.

In the state Senate election, Democrat James Andrew Malone, the mayor of East Petersburg, Pennsylvania, held a razor-thin lead over Republican Josh Parsons, a Lancaster County commissioner, as of early Wednesday morning.

“Obviously we are disappointed in the numbers. We are still reviewing them, but it appears we will come up a little short. We will have a further statement tomorrow,” Parsons wrote in a social media post late on Tuesday night.

The race was to fill the red-leaning seat in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that was left vacant when GOP state Sen. Ryan Aument stepped down in December to work as state director for newly elected U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, a fellow Republican.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the leaders of the party’s progressive base, took to social media Tuesday night to celebrate the victories.

“This is how it’s done. Run everywhere. Run down ballot. Focus on local elections ASAP – from school board to councils to state legislatures. We build from there,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, wrote Tuesday night that “Democrats are on a roll in state legislative races in 2025, from flipping red seats to defending one-seat majorities. Republicans should be on edge,”

And Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin characterized the victories as “a shockwave to the system and the way Republicans have run our government. Republicans everywhere should be afraid.”

But Republicans note that Democrats enjoyed a slew of special election victories in 2023 and 2024 before suffering serious setbacks in last November’s elections.

“Democrats are motivated and Republicans need to make sure our voters get out in the midterms, but the idea that a state legislative election is a direct harbinger of the midterm elections is a ludicrous idea,” Matt Gorman, a seasoned Republican strategist and veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, told Fox News.

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Veteran Republican consultant Dave Carney told Fox News that “past elections have no impact on future elections.”

“It’s happy talk. if we had won, we’d be bragging too,” Carney, a veteran of numerous presidential and statewide campaigns for over four decades, said.

But he warned that “Democrats on the left spend so much more money on special legislative elections, particularly in the off-years, than we do, that they have a built-in advantage…Our party needs to wake up and take these special elections as seriously as we do the ones in November.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.