Stephen Cobb

Welcome to the fourth season of State AG Pulse. In this season, we’re diving into the state and federal political landscape in the run-up to the 2024  general election. We’re talking with our colleagues at Cozen Public Strategies to uncover information and insights to help business leaders make better decisions.

Meghan Stoppel

Welcome to another episode of State AG Pulse. My name is Meghan Stoppel. I’m a partner here at Cozen O’Connor in our State Attorneys General Group. Joining me today from our group is my colleague and fellow partner, Siran Fulders. Welcome Siran.

Siran Fulders

Thank you very much for having me join. I’m looking forward to talking about this very interesting topic today.

Meghan Stoppel

Yeah. And in the spirit of mixing things up for this season, Siran and I are going to be joined today by two of our esteemed colleagues from Cozen Public Strategies in the great state of Pennsylvania. Joe Hill, former deputy campaign manager for former governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf, also a former member of Governor Shapiro’s transition team. Welcome, Joe, to the podcast.

Joe Hill

Thanks so much for having me.

Meghan Stoppel

Yeah. And we’re also joined today by Jim Davis, also a member of our Public Strategies team and the primary lobbyist assigned to the lovely capital of Harrisburg. Joe, Jim, welcome to the podcast. We are just thrilled to have you today and to have a few minutes of your time, especially since a topic for today’s episode is swing states. And as you both know, that’s going to be any state that’s sort of a toss up between Democrats and Republicans in that state, a state that could reasonably be won by either type of candidate in a statewide election. And there is really no doubt that Pennsylvania is one of those states in the 2020  election cycle and it has been in prior cycles. So let’s just jump right in and identify for the listeners who else besides Pennsylvania might sit in that category, what other states we’re talking about when we use the phrase swing states, especially in the context of the  cycle?

Joe Hill

So I think we’re generally talking about states that are in a few different regions. I think a lot of folks count Pennsylvania in the Rust Belt states. There’s Pennsylvania, there’s Ohio, there’s Michigan, Wisconsin, are all states that I think, Ohio less than it has been historically, but certainly Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan all are similar demographically and all generally are kind of – states and depending on what happens, it could tilt in either direction. You’ve also got the states in the Sun Belt, so to speak, so Arizona, Nevada, and states along those lines. And then increasingly the South has become a lot more competitive. So Georgia, certainly as we saw in the 2020  election where we’re talking about a few thousand votes separating Democrats from Republicans, has become increasingly competitive, as well as North Carolina.

Meghan Stoppel

I completely agree, I think, Joe, with your assessment there and I love sort of that approach of sort of breaking out the states by region of the country, right, or demographic, to try and tackle what is it about the demographics in these states that makes them so competitive. And I do want to note that from the attorney general perspective, we’ve got AG races happening in a couple of these states, but not all of them. Those states are going to be North Carolina and Pennsylvania. We did talk pretty extensively on our last State AG Pulse episode about the North Carolina race. So I think today Siran and I are going to focus primarily on the Pennsylvania race, before we turn our attention to some of the races in those other states.

Joe and Jim, I really would like to get your opinion on what you see as the key issues sort of at either the federal or the state level that you expect to really impact the outcome of the elections in some of these swing states. I’m just curious, sort of set the landscape for the audience. Do you think it’s going to be a referendum on Trump or Biden? Is it more nuanced than that in a state like Pennsylvania or elsewhere? What are your thoughts just high level?

Jim Davis

Yeah, I’ll chime in briefly and then certainly let Joe correct the record. Pennsylvania is going to be a heavy ticket for the presidential race and every ticket down ballot is going to be, every race down ballot, excuse me, is going to be benefit or get hurt by what’s happening up ticket. So there’s going to be a ton of money spent on the presidential. That’s going to affect I believe the AG race as well. Obviously the primary is going to be pretty interesting in Pennsylvania on the Democratic side with five candidates, four of which are from the Southeast. I don’t think there’ll be much presidential money spent in the primary. And I think the outcome of that election or of that race, excuse me, the AG race, will give us a pretty good indication about what direction it will go in I think in the fall then, in the general.

Joe Hill

Yeah, no, I think Jim’s right there. I think a lot of the oxygen in the room is going to be taken up by what’s happening at the top of the ticket. But I do think that we’ve seen in the last few cycles abortion being a really big issue, hot button issue, in these states. Certainly post the Supreme Court decision, I think it’s certainly animated the Democratic base in the Philadelphia suburbs. Certainly you’ve seen in TV ads Democrats have been really driving that message home. We just had our Supreme Court race last November. Democrats had a really good showing on an election day in ‘. I think surprised a lot of people, and I think a lot of that has to do with the abortion messaging,

Meghan Stoppel

All really great points. And I think it’ll be interesting to see in  how that issue in particular drives turnout and outcomes not just in Pennsylvania but everywhere, both at the top of the ticket and sort of down ballot for races like the AG races. But let’s get Siran into this conversation, because I do want to talk about the AG race in Pennsylvania specifically. So, Siran, why don’t you sort of set the stage for what’s happening in Pennsylvania on the AG side and in that race and then let’s talk about that and what we might see in the crystal ball so to speak.

Siran Fulders

Well, Pennsylvania certainly has been an interesting state to watch this cycle. It really is a purple state and as our Pennsylvania colleagues reminded us a couple of days ago when we were talking about this issue, it now is, as Pennsylvania goes, so goes the nation. So people really do have all eyes on what’s going on in Pennsylvania, very important state. The current AG in Pennsylvania is Michelle Henry. She had agreed not to run. From what I’ve heard, she really is favored by everybody so far, but of course she’s not on the ticket.

So the bottom line is that there are seven on the ticket, and I think that the seven that are running here, five on the Democratic side and two on the Republican side. The primary is really right around the corner, April rd. So three weeks away. Just to go over very briefly the candidates on the R and D side. And then of course I want to want you all to hear from the real experts here, Jim Davis and Joe Hill who are in Pennsylvania and boots on the ground and really know what’s going on there.

But first on the Democratic side you have Eugene DePasquale and I think everybody seems to believe that he is the frontrunner. He seems to have the most name recognition. He’s won elections before, I think, where he got  million votes, but he definitely is someone people know already.

Meghan Stoppel

And that’s because he’s the former state auditor.

Siran Fulders

That’s right. That’s right. He’s the former state auditor and he’s been elected before, so he’s got a leg up. Yes, exactly, Meghan. Joe Khan also running there. Former Bucks County Solicitor. And then Keir Bradford-Gray who I’ve had an opportunity to get to know quite well just because she’s come to a lot of AG meetings and has had an opportunity to address the crowd. Representative Jared Solomon, state rep. Interesting there, just in the last couple of weeks he’s had about a million dollars thrown into his campaign, which folks say is going to help him with name recognition. And then Jack Stollsteimer, from Delaware County District. He’s Delaware County District Attorney and a former US attorney at DOJ.

So that’s who we’ve got on the Democratic side. In terms of who’s going to win and then before I talk about the Republicans, there was an interesting poll following their attorney general debate, which kind of followed what we thought with Eugene DePasquale leading with %. I think, Jim and Joe, you’re probably hearing something similar to what I’m hearing, but let me turn it over to you if I could, to ask what your thoughts are on the current frontrunner there and maybe the reasons why he is the frontrunner.

Jim Davis

I mean, you touched on a large portion of it. I think him having statewide name recognition is a very important part of it. Another important part is the other four candidates are, as I mentioned previously, from the Southeast. So you’re going to have some votes that will be going to one candidate and another candidate based on region and that’s going to hurt the overall numbers for those candidates individually. So I think Eugene being from Western Pennsylvania, born and raised out there, and then living in York County, being a former State Representative from York County, and again securing almost  million votes statewide when he ran, successfully ran for Auditor General, I think that puts him in a great spot. But the other candidates are very, very qualified, very good, and they would be fantastic AG candidates and AGs if they’re successfully elected.

Joe Hill

Yep. I think Jim’s right. All of those candidates when we talk about Jared Solomon, Keir Bradford-Gray, Jack Stollsteimer, and Joe Khan are all from areas right outside of Philadelphia. So they all know each other, they’re all close to each other, and short of someone sort of emerging out of that Southeast part of the state, I think it’s going to be really challenging for them to beat Eugene. I will say that Jared Solomon has been able to raise significant resources, and he’s already on television, which is a big deal when you’re talking about a low information race like this where a lot of people aren’t really following it as much as they’re following the top of the ticket. And so I think the fact that Jared has, I think about twice the amount of money on hand as anyone else, I think could work to his advantage in the final stretch, provided the other candidates in the Southeast start to consolidate around him. But we haven’t seen that happening yet, so short of that happening, I think Eugene is still in the house.

Meghan Stoppel

Yeah, Joe, I think that’s a really good point about the impact that the TV ads or any other sort of media advertising, whether you think about social media advertising, flyers, whatever it is, door knockers, could have on that name recognition component and how that could really impact what box people check when they turn in those ballots. I was also struck by, I mean I was reading something the other day, it looks like state Democratic leaders haven’t endorsed a candidate in this race yet. And I’m curious, is that sort of par for the course in Pennsylvania when you’ve got a pretty competitive primary field, whether it’s for a statewide office like the AG or any other office? They just let the voters figure it out on primary day and then weigh into the fray? Or is there something unique about this mixture of candidates in the primary field that led those leadership folks to say, “We’re not going to weigh in and put our thumb on the scale?”

Joe Hill

It’s a really big field, I think is one reason you haven’t seen there be a consensus pick emerge. And we have a lot of cautious, ambitious, elected officials in Pennsylvania and I don’t think there’s any value add for them to come out in favor of one person over the other at this point, whether it’s Josh Shapiro who was just selected and is going to need to go back up for reelection, Casey who’s up this year. I don’t think it would benefit either of them to come out in favor of one person or the other. But I think that’s generally par for the course. There’s some exceptions to the rule, but I just think given the timeline and when people are up for election, it doesn’t really benefit anybody to do anything one way or another.

Meghan Stoppel

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so let’s turn to Siran. Who’s in the Republican field as we lead up to the primary on April rd? Let’s talk about that.

Siran Fulders

Sure. Well, the Republican field is smaller. And that could be because of a couple of things, but there are two candidates on the R side. They are Dave Sunday, York County District Attorney, and Craig Williams. Dave Sunday has been supported and endorsed by the Republican Party, also by RAGA, the Republican Attorney General’s Association. So he seems to have a lot of the endorsements in the state.

Craig Williams is probably viewed as the more moderate of the two, but because Trump is on the ballot and Dave Sunday really has the state committee endorsement and also the endorsement of RAGA, it sounds pretty likely that he will be the candidate. He has an interesting, good background, a law enforcement background. He joined the Navy right out of high school and while he was working, he went to college and law school at night while he was working. So he’s a pretty respected man there in Pennsylvania, likely, in my view, to be the Republican candidate.

There was a poll that said that Craig Williams actually won the debate over Dave Sunday. So I have checked with a couple of my folks in the field who are familiar with the candidates and their view is that that’s an anomaly, but since it was a win by Craig Williams over Dave, and fairly significant, it did give me pause and wondered what your thoughts were there.

Jim Davis

I think that was a moment in time that was captured. And again, you addressed, it was a poll after a debate. I don’t think that necessarily reflects the electability or favorability of those two candidates. I do think Sunday is certainly in the position with all the endorsements that he has statewide and outside the state as well. But the one caveat I would bring to the discussion is that Representative Williams is a House member and he has contacts throughout the state because of his colleagues. And I don’t know if that provides him with an opportunity for a stronger presence on election day with respect to get out the vote and foot soldiers, but I certainly would be surprised if Sunday did not win the Republican nomination.

Siran Fulders

Joe, I guess one question I had for you really relates to the endorsement of the governor. How influential do you think that’s going to be and how hard do you think he’s going to work that AG race?

Joe Hill

So I think everybody sort of expects Josh to work really hard for the top of the ticket certainly and everybody down ballot. I think again, Josh is not going to want to see Pennsylvania turn red. I think he is going to use all the tools at his disposal to make sure as many people have access to vote as possible. And I think he’s going to work harder than any other governor we’ve seen in recent memory just because of who he is and how he’s wired.

So I don’t know how much of an impact it’ll have because I think the environment becomes so nationalized when we have a presidential election, especially a presidential election like this one with two known quantities. And so I think there’ll be a lot of voices involved in this race, a lot of surrogates coming into the state, a lot of TV ads, a lot of mailers. And so a lot of the time those voices get drowned out. We’ve also got Casey, Senator Casey up for re-election as well. And so the AG race I think will be one of the races that’s paid the least amount of attention to in the public’s eye just because of how consequential the control of the Senate is and as well as the Trump effect, I think, is what I’m calling it.

Meghan Stoppel

That’s really interesting, Joe, because I think people listening today could think one of two things. Exactly what you’re saying, which is they’re going to focus on top of the ticket, sort of the Trump-Biden referendum, and anything else is going to get drowned out. It’s just white noise. Or people who are disillusioned with the Trump-Biden race are going to say, “Well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t like either of those candidates. I’ll check a box, but my vote’s going to matter more on those down ballot contests. So let me focus on those.” And those are probably going to be your more informed voters. The folks that care more are plugged in a little bit more. But I do think it’ll be interesting to see if Shapiro does weigh in behind whoever the Democratic candidate for AG becomes, how effective he can be in pushing that person over the finish line.

And it’s just one of those really interesting dynamics that you see when you’ve got an individual who was the AG step into the governor’s mansion. They can speak in a way about that role that no one else can about the work that’s being done by that office, the impact that that position has on the state and consumers. So yeah, I agree. It’ll be really, really interesting to see how he uses that experience and that narrative to push the Democratic candidate forward. But, yeah, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the primary shakes out in a couple of weeks.

Let’s talk a little bit about those other races in Pennsylvania.

Joe Hill

I think the two biggest races again are the presidential and the Senate race, followed by the AG race. There’s also, which Jim can talk a lot more about, control of the legislature. We have a razor-slim majority, Democrats, I’ll say, have a razor-slim majority in the House. And so control of the House is going to be pretty important moving forward, as well as the Senate. Democrats are deeply in the minority there, so I don’t know likely it is for them to be able to gain control of that chamber but everything’s certainly up for grabs.

And I do think turnout’s going to be pretty significant because mail-in voting has become such a critical fixture of our elections here in Pennsylvania. For example, in the primary race right now, people are voting, people have already voted and cast their ballot. So I think it makes it a lot more difficult to break out in the final stretch, to get people to change their mind in the last two weeks or in the last  days when candidate strategy is to rack up as many votes as possible before election day even gets here. So I think that generally yields higher turnout as well.

Jim Davis

Joe touched on the makeup of the House right now, depending on the day literally is -, Democrats are in control. I actually think that the control right now is – because of a recent resignation by a Republican House member. And that’s been the struggle of governing in the House for the last, I’m looking at the calendar now,  months of the Democrats being in control. They’ve had slim majorities, no majorities, and then coming back to slim majorities again. So I think as we’ve talked about on the call already, the amount of money that’s going to be spent in the general, up ticket on all the races, that’s going to impact the local House races.

I think now more than ever candidates matter. So I do think if Democrats are running good candidates in some swing districts, maybe they could grab one or two Republican districts. I think if Republicans are running some candidates in districts that they lost in the last cycle and they’re qualified good candidates, there could be a chance that the majority flips next year. I’m not seeing anything that gives me any sort of strong indication that that’s going to happen. Democrats are expecting to add a couple seats, but it’s a different world that we’re all living in right now politically.

Meghan Stoppel

Yeah, absolutely. And I love the point about how candidates matter now more than ever. I mean, I think that’s something that’s really been underscored by what we’re seeing in the presidential race this year. But that reminds me that I want to talk about what is the history in Pennsylvania of, I think what some folks refer to as ticket splitting? How many folks in Pennsylvania, Jim, Joe, from your experience or just anecdotal knowledge, go into that behind-the-curtain and will check the box for a Democratic AG or Democratic governor and then down ticket check the box for a Republican state representative. Does that happen in Pennsylvania? And what’s the likelihood that you’re going to see more of that moving into the future because the candidates matter. And people are looking at the candidates, not just the letter beside the candidate’s name.

Jim Davis

Yeah, it’s happening, and I think it’s going to continue to happen more every cycle. Pennsylvania got rid of straight party voting. I’m forgetting what year it was. I’m going to guess , Joe? ? It arguably impacted the outcome of the Trump reelect. That was what he pointed to was the mail-in ballots and the impact that had on the election. But straight party voting is allowing people to go in and actually look to see who the candidates are, where they’re from, and maybe even do a little research on them. So I might be a little mistaken with the year. It might not have been that early. It may have been later, . But the trade at the time legislatively was Republicans wanted to get rid of straight party voting, and Democrats wanted mail-in ballots.

Meghan Stoppel

And when you say straight party voting, Jim, how did that work mechanically? Folks, they could just check, they just literally pulled the lever, Joe?

Joe Hill

For Democrats, you pull the Democratic lever and you vote for every Democrat or vice versa. And Republicans, I do believe it was either ‘ or ‘ when that went through, Act  I think it was, which allowed mail-in voting and also disallowed the straight party voting. I think Republicans beat themselves up after that. Republicans thought that straight party voting really benefited Democrats significantly and didn’t really see there being a significant uptick on mail-in voting. And then the pandemic happened and the way people voted, the modes of voting, changed significantly. And I think it’s probably one of the main drivers of Biden winning Pennsylvania is just the way people voted in . And so ever since then, that has proven to work in Democrats favor.

Meghan Stoppel

Well, I feel like we’ve really covered the landscape in Pennsylvania, so I want to make sure we leave a few minutes to at least talk about these other swing states that we mentioned at the outset. Joe, I love the way you sort of categorized them by region of the country, the Rust Belt, the Sun Belt, the Southern states. So let’s do that, and I’ll sort of turn the floor over to you, Jim and Joe, to talk about that. But maybe we start with those states that are most like Pennsylvania, the Wisconsins, the Michigans. What are you watching in those states? Demographically, why do you put, other than they’re in the northern half of the country, you put a Wisconsin and a Michigan in the same category as Pennsylvania. What makes it like Pennsylvania?

Joe Hill

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are very similar demographically. They have aging populations. The split between white, Black and Latinx voters is generally similar. For example, you have Philadelphia being the big anchor in Pennsylvania. In Michigan, you have Detroit being the big anchor. And so Black turnout in those metro markets is really important, and in the suburbs around them. And making sure that you drive turnout among suburban women is a strategy that you use in both of those states. And similarly with Milwaukee in Wisconsin, and to a lesser extent, Madison.

I’d say if you go south, Black turnout for the Democrats is very important. It’s really significant. And then in the Sun Belt you have a really large Hispanic population, Spanish-speaking populations. The states are growing a lot more quickly. And then you also have aging populations there as well. And so demographics are shifting a lot more rapidly in states like Arizona and Nevada than they are elsewhere across the country. And so the issues that are important in Arizona and Nevada, like immigration is a huge issue in those states, and I think will certainly impact the outcome of the presidential election, but also control of the Senate and the House as well.

Meghan Stoppel

Yeah, and I think that’s such an important point to make about how the platforms, the planks, and the policies have to sort of be a little bit malleable and regionalized or tailored to those demographics that you’re seeing in some of these swing states. I think it’ll be interesting to see if we see some of that same tailoring in the AG messages. The only AG races we’re seeing this year in swing states are in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Demographically different. Are they so different that they’re driving different policy platforms from the Republican candidates and the Democratic candidates in the AG race? I don’t think so. It’ll be interesting to see, I think, if that North Carolina race swings Republican this year.

Siran Fulders

Many people would think that it’s pretty impossible for a Republican candidate to win there. However, Dan Bishop has name recognition, he’s a congressman, former Freedom Caucus, I believe. I think he’s going to be a very strong candidate and I think a lot of money is going to be thrown into that state. I know you mentioned Pennsylvania, where there’s going to be a boatload of money. I think you’re going to see the same thing in North Carolina. So it may be that that trend will be reversed. Although, I don’t know how much you’re following the top of the ticket, Joe and Jim in North Carolina, whether the top of the ticket from a Republican perspective will drag down Dan Bishop on the AG side?

Jim Davis

The presidential race is going to, whoever wins that ticket is going to affect a lot of the down ballot races, whether it’s control of the legislature in those states, or just moving the control in those states. So I think what’s going to happen in Pennsylvania is going to be a pretty good indicator with respect to other states as well, with control.

Meghan Stoppel

All right, well, this has been a fascinating discussion. Joe, Jim, thank you so much for joining us today. I suppose the voters in Pennsylvania are going to prove us right or wrong on some of these predictions later this month when the primary happens. But, Siran, thank you for taking the time for this conversation as well. Really appreciate all of your insights. It has been a pleasure.

Stephen Cobb

You’ve been listening to State AG Pulse, brought to you by Cozen O’Connor’s State AG Group, and the State AG Report. Please leave us a five-star rating and of course, tune in again in two weeks for our next episode.