In a sense, the GOP’s mission is straightforward: If voters remove Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht, the current 5-2 Democratic majority would fall to a 2-2 tie. Republicans would then have a shot at winning an outright majority in the 2027 cycle, in time for the 2028 presidential election.
But in practice, this is a tall order.
Because these three judges are up for retention, they have no opponents. Pennsylvania voters will see the justices’ names on the ballot and face a choice for each: retain or fire. The state lists no partisan markers on retention ballots, even though justices are initially elected in partisan races.
Presented with such a choice, voters tend to overwhelmingly favor retention, treating it as the default option, which puts a heavy burden on the opposition. It’s been 20 years since any Pennsylvania state judge has even come within 22 percentage points of defeat.
And even if the justices are ousted in November, Republicans wouldn’t just take over the seats. The 2-2 tie that would result could become a prolonged stalemate that keeps the seats vacant through the fall of 2027, the next cycle with judicial elections.
That’s because any replacements for ousted justices would need to be nominated by the state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and then approved by a supermajority in the Republican-controlled state Senate. The last time a vacancy arose, when a justice died in September of 2022, the seat just remained empty until voters chose a replacement in the November 2023 election; several Pennsylvania politicos told Bolts they expect the same thing would happen now.
Still, any seats vacated this year would go up for a regular election in 2027, which could hand the GOP a new, clear path to flipping the court that year. Without some success this year, and barring unexpected departures from the court, Republicans have virtually no path to a majority until 2029 at the earliest….