How PA gubernatorial race affects the down‑ballot

This piece was originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer's Currents.

This week they look at how the Pennsylvania gubernatorial contest is affecting down-ballot races.

Rooney: My barometer of whether or not a race is in play is based upon the race itself, not the factors that surround it. The race for governor can have an effect on down-ballot races, but only if that campaign has a lot of other things going on. A gubernatorial candidate may bring a substantial lead into Election Day, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is going to be the tide that lifts all boats. State legislative and congressional candidates need to have other oars in the water in order to benefit from a large win at the top.

Novak: We have two dynamics at play. President Obama is not on the ballot, but all indications are that his unpopularity will slightly depress Democrat turnout and slightly enhance Republican turnout. The polls show more Republican intensity than Democrat intensity - by a margin as much as 10 percent. For Republicans, ordinarily, that would be a very good thing, except for the polling problems that Gov. Corbett has and the polling lead that Tom Wolf enjoys. The issue becomes: How do these candidates generate turnout? This year it is all about the efforts of the individual campaigns.

Rooney: With a little over four weeks to go, the top of the ticket doesn't tell one story - it tells many stories about how the down-ballot races are being affected. For example, there is a suburban Philadelphia congressional contest where the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put money down for ads. Last week they allocated that money to a different race in a different part of the country. Conversely, we saw the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee put on-air commercials in two targeted legislative seats in suburban Philadelphia. So, on one hand you have national Democrats pulling money out of a race, and on the other you have state Democrats receiving it.

Novak: The national money, whether it's from campaign committees or Super PAC-types, are looking at the dynamics of individual races. They are asking: "What's the difference in money raised between the two candidates?" What's the internal polling saying about those races? Whether it's the race between U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.) and Democrat Kevin Strouse in Bucks and Montgomery, or the Ryan Costello (R.) vs. Manan Trivedi (D.) race, which covers Montgomery, Chester, and Bucks, if it looks like a race is not as competitive as it was four months ago, then that money is going to flow in a different direction. In the state races, for example in Delaware County's Senate race between Tom McGarrigle (R.) and John Kane (D.), there is an intense effort. That race is one of the top three or four races in the state and it's too close to call. There is going to be intense effort there, which will, in turn, make it too close to call in some of the state House races within that Senate district.

Rooney: A big win at the top isn't necessarily going to pull the candidates across the line who haven't done all the retail politicking and fund-raising you need to do to run a winning campaign. You can be the happy beneficiary of a close win in the shadow of a gubernatorial race that's not so close but, in this case, Democrats must have everything else right to put themselves in that position to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise as a result of a commanding victory in Southeastern Pennsylvania by Wolf over Corbett.

Novak: What I find interesting are the two different sets of issues that are being discussed. Immigration reform and health care are the hot tickets in the congressional campaigns because those issues get voters aligned with their feelings, which right now are fairly negative toward the federal government and toward the president. At state campaign events, you hear conversations about education, severance tax, and state pension reform. Here in the Southeast, there's more alignment - even among Republicans - on where Wolf is on severance tax than there is with Gov. Corbett. And then there are the two different worlds in Southeastern vs. Western Pennsylvania. Education is treated differently in the Southeast in terms of how the candidates' address it and, frankly, what the polling shows voters feel about it. It's the same with severance tax. The further north and west you go, the severance tax gets less popular.

Rooney: This election cycle is shaping up to be quintessential Pennsylvania. When you talk to Republican leaders and ask where they think they might have some gains to offset some potential losses, every single, solitary answer begins with a town west of Bradford. There is a different set of issues that are being accentuated in that part of the state then in Southeastern Pennsylvania. It's a big state and when you run statewide you run four different campaigns. The overall messaging is the same, but the nuances are tailored to those different areas of Pennsylvania. It's crassly political, but it all tends to add up.

Novak: I am going to predict that in these last four weeks, there will be much more discussion about the down-ballot races individually then there will even be about the top of the ticket. Some of these races are very close. What is going to happen tactically in those races over these last few weeks is going to make them very interesting.

T.J. Rooney is a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

Alan Novak is a former chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania.