🕺 Friday, Friday. Gotta Get Down on Friday. Make it a great weekend.

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🗞️ Good Morning Pennsylvania. Find all the latest news on what’s happening in Keystone State politics with the PoliticsPA Playbook. We’ll deliver all the latest headlines in an easy-to-read format every weekday at 8 AM. And it’s free. Add your name to the list and subscribe now.

Top Story

1. McCormick Campaign Charts Recount Path Forward

“Now that a recount in the U.S. Senate contest has been ordered by the Pennsylvania Department of State (DOS), the Dave McCormick campaign is laying out its strategy for ensuring that its lead in the race remains intact.

Once the 67 counties in the Commonwealth submitted their unofficial results on Tuesday to DOS, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt was required to call for a recount, as state election law calls for a mandatory recount should the difference between candidates in the unofficial results be within 0.5%.” (PoliticsPA)

Elsewhere

Pennsylvania’s Senate Race is Now Playing Out in County Board Rooms and the Courtroom. “As Bob Casey stays in the Senate race, he’s pinning his hopes on small, county-level fights over contested ballots to close a 25,000-vote gap with Dave McCormick.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

• Dave McCormick Once Fought to Have Undated Mail Ballots Counted. Now, In Tight Race With Bob Casey, He’s Suing to Block Them. (Inquirer)
• Dave McCormick’s Campaign Declares Victory — Again — But When is a Win a Win? (PennLive)

Pennsylvania Courts Get Lawsuits Over Ballot-Counting In Senate Contest Headed Toward a Recount. “Republicans went to court in Pennsylvania on Thursday amid vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, as the campaigns prepare for a recount and press counties for favorable ballot-counting decisions.” (AP)

The New Driving Force of Identity Politics Is Class, Not Race. “Americans are increasingly voting along class lines, not racial ones. That could upend how we’ve thought about politics for decades.” (Wall Street Journal)

State

2. Should the Democratic Party Be Listening to John Fetterman?

“John Fetterman often has an uncanny sense of which presidential candidate is going to win Pennsylvania.

The Democratic senator warned that Donald Trump was stronger than ever in the days leading up to the 2024 contest. He was bullish about Joe Biden in 2020 — and again this year, even after the president’s disastrous debate. Fetterman sounded alarms about Hillary Clinton in 2016, too, when he said “the white male vote is going to decide the race.”” (POLITICO)

Elsewhere

Ward Says Election Results May Sway Moderate Democrats Against Left-Leaning Leaders. “The recent election did not change the balance of power in the state Legislature, but Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward said the results are an endorsement of Senate Republicans’ focus on working-class issues and may sway the priorities of moderate Democrats.” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

PA House Democrats Spent More Than $18 Million to Hold Onto Their Narrow Majority, As Legislative Races Get More Expensive. “The campaign arms behind both parties in the state House and Senate spent more than $35 million on the election, as local officials try to keep up with historic spending on top-of-the-ticket races.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Latino Faith Leader Reacts to Trump Win in Pennsylvania. “Robert Albino, the Hispanic outreach director for the Pennsylvania Family Council and a faith leader in Bethlehem, told The Center Square he thinks the most significant result of this election is the growing strength of the Latino vote, which should not be ignored or taken for granted.” (The Center Square)

Latino Republicans, Empowered By Election, Flex New Political Might in PA. “The 2024 election cycle saw the debut of several notable entries into the commonwealth’s Hispanic conservative sphere.” (City & State)

Around The Commonwealth

3. Main Street of the Realignment

“An old highway tells the story of Pennsylvania’s historic realignment, years in the making and solidified last Tuesday, when Republicans swept every elected statewide office – from U.S. president and Senate to row offices – for the first time since 1980.

Nearly a century old, Route 309 begins around the northeast’s Wyoming Valley, continues through Luzerne County then past the Blue Mountain ridge and onward to the Lehigh Valley, where it passes Pennsylvania Dutch communities and enters suburban Philadelphia’s Bucks County before terminating at the state’s biggest city.

Not long ago, Route 309 covered regions that exemplified Democrats’ commonwealth blue wall. But last week, in a dramatic red shift hastened by demographic outcomes improbable even in 2016, the areas around Route 309 proved most pivotal to Donald Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania, a key component of his White House win over Kamala Harris.” (City Journal)

Elsewhere

Allentown Mayor Touts ‘Tremendous Progress’ As He Launches Re-Election Bid. “Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk is running for a second term. It’s long been expected — and reported — that Tuerk would seek four more years in the city’s top job, but he made it official Thursday night at the Da Vinci Science Center.” (LehighValleyNews.com)

Where Trump Did and Didn’t Gain Votes in Philadelphia. “Pennsylvania is a swing state but Philadelphia is very much not a swing county. While the commonwealth has flipped back and forth for the past four election cycles, its largest city has not voted for a Republican President since 1932.” (Broad + Liberty)

The Turbo-Charged Republican Candidate Who Flipped Philly’s Northeast State Senate Seat — Without Local Leadership’s Help. “29-year-old Joe Picozzi won a seat that Philly’s GOP never intended to flip.” (Billy Penn)

‘Fear Has Probably Doubled’: PA Town With Large Haitian Population Awaits Trump Moves. “It’s too early to say whether Trump’s promise of deporting Haitians who are currently safeguarded with Temporary Protected Status will play out. But in the meantime, Charleroi is still feeling the impacts of his remarks about its immigrant community, as well as the KKK flier and white supremacist stickers that followed.” (PennLive)

• Trump Administration’s Mass Deportation Plan Would Hurt Pennsylvania, Immigrant Advocates Warn. (Penn Capital-Star)

By the Numbers: Small Ballot Errors, County Security Procedures Led to Election Day Mishap. “Set between blocks of computer “timing” code, seven tiny numbers line the left-hand margin of the Election Day ballots that Cambria County eventually started scanning to add up results Nov. 5.” (Johnstown Tribune-Democrat)

Editorial

4. What’s On Your Mind

• 9 Women on Why America Still Doesn’t Have a Woman President. (POLITICO)
• Nostalgia — Nor a Dusty Pink Hat — Won’t Save Us From a Second Trump Presidency. (Helen Ubiñas)
• Our Choices Reflect Our Values. (Barry N. Bishop)
• Trump’s Recess-Appointment Scheme. (Wall Street Journal)
• Why Are the Winners of the 2024 Election So … Mad? (Lauren McCutcheon)
• For Pennsylvania To Recover From the Opioid Crisis, We Must Work Together. (Sen. Greg Rothman)

1 Thing

5. How to Approach the Holidays With People You Deeply Disagree With

“On this week’s episode of Code Switch, we spoke to a young woman who had this to say on Election Day: “I’m disgusted by the blood I carry in my veins because I’m related to these people.” By “these people,” she was referring to her relatives who had supported a presidential candidate that she found abhorrent. She went on to say that in order to support said candidate, “you have to be next-level dumb or next-level evil.”

Those words reflect a sentiment I’ve heard repeated for years now, about the pain and immense frustration at seeing the people you love make decisions that you hate. So what do you do about that?” (WQLN)

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