The Pennsylvania suburbs could be ripe for the GOP takeover this year. They’re said to be fed up with Biden’s agenda, high inflation, economic lethargy and overall bleak economy. These areas were supposed to be hotbeds of abortion, which Democrats thought could be used as a buffer against electoral doom. Instead, the economy, jobs, schools and education are the top concerns of voters here — which should put a smile on the faces of Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz’s campaign, who is running in a tight race against Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. But while Oz may be smiling, Doug Mastriano’s camp is probably sweating like a pig. Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, polled within the margin of error of Democrat Josh Shapiro but has since lost ground. The fact that the Pennsylvania suburbs are fertile ground for Oz but radioactive for Mastriano can be explained by the reports of the return of a species of voter thought to be extinct: split-ticket voters.
It’s not just Pennsylvania. It’s nationwide, where Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is up for re-election, but Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance is in the chunky of a race against Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan. NBC News has more:
Ticket Shredders are back and playing a starring role in the cluttered 2022 campaign.
In key swing states from Georgia to New Hampshire to Ohio, potentially decisive shares of voters are telling pollsters they will support a Democrat for one major office and a Republican for another.
Nowhere is this vigorous more evident than in Pennsylvania.
“What you’re seeing is a rejection of extremism,” Morgan Boyd, a Republican and Lawrence County commissioner who endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro but is backing GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, said in an interview. “Moderates everywhere are standing up and saying, ‘Enough.’”
Shapiro, the state attorney general, is leading Republican Doug Mastriano by 11 points in a recent Fox News poll, while Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman’s lead over Oz is just 4 points — just outside the margin of error. Oz’s allies say “Oz-Shapiro” voters are key to his chances of defeating Fetterman. In the past two weeks, Oz’s campaign co-chair has been spotted at Shapiro’s fundraisers, while two major police unions, one representing Philadelphia officers and the other representing Pennsylvania state troopers, have expressed support for Oz and Shapiro.
For decades, it wasn’t uncommon for voters to cast ballots that were far from uniform in the party affiliation of the candidates they chose. But as the two parties have become increasingly ideologically cohesive in the 21st century, such ticket-splitting voters have become an increasingly endangered species. But this cycle, these voters may hold the key to winning the most high-profile races — if a number of recent polls reflect the outcome.
Some observers have suggested a moderate voter revolt. I don’t think so. Centrist voters are frail and tend to shun the partisan fights that define each party. That’s why they’re not on Capitol Hill. When things get too balmy, they run, like Olympia Snowe and Evan Bayh. Doug Mastriano is definitely not a politician. He’s unpolished in many areas and isn’t what you’d consider the best candidate based on how D.C. rates candidates’ core traits — but he also won a primary. I’d be more inclined to think Shapiro-Oz voters are avoiding Mastriano because they don’t like his personality, which is different from voting against someone based on his political views. Trump’s platform is saturated with popular policy initiatives, but the climate gets complicated when a former president’s name is attached to it. That was a political quandary that Trump’s team and the national Republican Party haven’t solved in terms of messaging, though it’s a Herculean task: separating the policy from the man who promotes it.
There is no doubt that split voting is happening, and in some states like New Hampshire it is not entirely shocking, but portraying it as a comeback or revenge by moderate voters is a bit of an exaggeration. These people do not have the backbone to stay in this game, which is nasty, brutal and without mercy.
