Pennsylvania Dems decline to endorse in Senate primary

The non-endorsement is a disappointment for Rep. Conor Lamb.

Democratic activists just took a pass on endorsing in one of the biggest Senate races in the country.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party declined to throw its weight behind a candidate in the primary for the state’s open Senate seat at a meeting in Harrisburg on Saturday.

The non-endorsement is a disappointment for Conor Lamb, who has been trailing behind primary frontrunner John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, in polls and fundraising. The congressman from western Pennsylvania had hustled behind the scenes to capture the party’s blessing in the Senate race, arguing to Democrats in private calls and several campaign-style mailers that he is the candidate best-equipped to beat the GOP nominee in November.

“No endorsement means no change in the existing trajectory of this campaign,” said J.J. Balaban, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist who is not working for a candidate in the Senate race. “Given that John Fetterman has a substantial lead in the polls and the most money in the bank, he benefits the most from no one being endorsed by the state Democratic Party.”

The lack of an endorsement is also a small victory for the other candidates in the primary, who were not expected to win the party’s backing.

Though it was a letdown for Lamb, most Democratic insiders predicted before the vote that no endorsement would take place due to the high bar needed to receive it. And Lamb demonstrated that he has a significant amount of support in the state party regardless. The nod required winning at least two-thirds of the votes of state committee people, and Lamb fell just short of that threshold. He finished in first place with 61 percent of the vote on a second ballot. Fetterman took second place, garnering 23 percent of ballots.

“We all started out at zero-zero. Every candidate had the chance to make their case to this pool of voters from around our state,” said Lamb in an interview. “We outworked everybody. So I’m honored to have gotten 60 percent, and we’re walking out of here victorious because we showed them that we can outperform every other campaign.”

He added: “It wasn’t 60 percent to 40 percent. It was a commanding victory over two other, really three other candidates.”

David Rodriguez, chair of the Pennsylvania Democrats’ Latino Caucus and a state committee member, said he supported Lamb because he is the most electable candidate in the primary: “He’s the only candidate that we feel could win our general election against the Republicans.”

Rodriguez said he previously supported Fetterman in the 2018 primary for lieutenant governor, but that Fetterman did not reach out to him about this endorsement. “We haven’t really heard from Fetterman since he won lieutenant governor,” he said.

Democratic operatives said that the value of the endorsement shouldn’t be overestimated. It would not have come with money, and candidates who carry the state’s Democratic Party endorsement do not have a sterling record of success. In other words, it would have been no guarantee.

In 2016, for instance, Katie McGinty did not receive the endorsement, but went on to win the Senate primary. Conversely, the late Sen. Arlen Specter, who changed his party registration from Republican to Democrat after voting for then-President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package, got the party nod in 2010, but then was defeated in the primary.

“There isn’t much connection in Pennsylvania in a high-profile race between winning the endorsement of the state committee and actually winning the primary,” said Balaban. Still, he said, “you’d rather have it than not have it.”

While Fetterman and his campaign did place calls to committee people, he does not appear to have put as much effort into winning the endorsement as Lamb. Some committee people said they had not heard from him.

Fetterman is not particularly good at, or fond of, schmoozing party insiders. And many of them don’t like his not-a-typical-politician style — the same style that has made Fetterman a powerhouse grassroots fundraiser who raked in $12 million in 2021.

A characteristic split-screen emerged a day before the state party met to decide whether to make an endorsement in the race. Fetterman drew attention by wearing athletic shorts and a hoodie while greeting President Joe Biden in Pittsburgh at the site of a collapsed bridge. Some Democrats privately grumbled about his dress.

Nina Ahmad, the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for auditor general in 2020, tweeted what some of them wouldn’t say publicly: “The disrespect and sense of entitlement is disgusting.”

In a speech Fetterman gave before the vote was held, he said, “How do you evaluate the strength of a campaign? Is it votes in this room? Sure. How do you evaluate the strength in a campaign? How about polls? How about fundraising? How about the number of donors?”

Fetterman also lost some support among state committee members to Philadelphia-based state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a fellow progressive who would be the first Black and openly gay senator in Pennsylvania if elected. York County Democratic Party chair and state committee member Chad Baker, for instance, said he initially was considering backing Fetterman on the first ballot, but threw his support to Kenyatta after meeting him.

“He really just kind of resonated, which was something I felt like was maybe not something we were seeing from the other candidates,” he said.

In several mailers sent to state committee members, Lamb’s team argued that he “is the Only Senate Candidate to Beat the Trump Machine — Three Times.” They also championed him as a proponent of ending the filibuster.

Literature passed out by Fetterman’s campaign touted him as an “UNAPOLOGETIC POPULIST” with a “NO-BS STYLE” who is the “ONLY CANDIDATE, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN, WHO HAS WON STATEWIDE.”

Democratic committee members were permitted to vote on the endorsement either in person or online.

Kenyatta won 15 percent of the vote on a second ballot, while Val Arkoosh, a Montgomery County commissioner, did not make it to a second ballot because she did not meet the 15 percent threshold on a first ballot. The state party only holds two rounds of votes on an endorsement.

Making it onto the second ballot — and coming close to Fetterman — was a minor win for Kenyatta. On the first ballot, Lamb received 52 percent of the vote, Fetterman 23 percent, and Kenyatta 19 percent.

The state’s Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Josh Shapiro for governor and state Rep. Austin Davis for lieutenant governor. Shapiro is essentially running unopposed in the Democratic primary, and Davis is his pick for his running mate.