Ok, I’m going to admit two things. The first is, I actually held back the worst stuff about Bob “Crooksy” Brooks, a Congressional candidate in PA-7, to this point. For a while, I felt like maybe it was overkill. You see, I told you that he stiffed his ex-mother-in-law for $55,000, then lost a lawsuit and appeal. Then since he lost and owed over $130k, he just abandoned the property in his divorce settlement and left it to his ex. You see, when I first published it, I really hoped the guy would just not run. He not only announced, but also announced his endorsement from Deadbeat Bernie Sanders and every other person not from PA-7 besides Governor Shapiro. Of course, this guy had promised Governor Shapiro (and even got a newspaper to print), but what’s the truth to him? Once I knew he was getting in, I decided to tell you a bit more about “Crooksy,” mainly that he’s a militant religious and gun nut that aligns with the 3%’ers. Then, the “working class hero” that stole from his mother-in-law decided to not even attend Labor Day Celebrations with other unions, despite being a statewide union President. He’s just lazy, frankly. Others alluded to that before. Yes, the guy is a deadbeat that stiffed his mother-in-law, it’s not even my opinion. Two courts in Pennsylvania found it. Yes, he’s a right-wing nut. Frankly though, I sat on some stuff. Criticisms from an Allentown Fire Fighter in the political spectrum made me think twice. Sure, this guy is a bum. However, I can’t tell you the last time the Fire Fighters Union and I disagreed on a major campaign. Frankly, I was conflicted.
Well, now I’m not. The other night I ran into a longtime, lifelong friend at the Phillies-Mets game, I’m talking someone who came to see me in the hospital after they chopped off my leg. He’s a fire fighter for a city in the Lehigh Valley, not an overly political guy, and he asked me a question that cut like a thousand knives- are you anti-fire fighter? I had spent three hours waiting in line at a fire fighter’s viewing the night before, I spent my early, formative years in politics organizing with fire fighters in Iowa for Presidential campaigns. Not only was it such a cut at me, to say that through a personal friend? Blaspheme. I guess I was only a friend to this particular union leadership when they didn’t support a deadbeat. Fine.
So here’s where I admit the second part- I held back all the stuff where Bob Brooks really shows you who he is. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks not only stiffed his mother-in-law, his internet history is a horrendous dumpster fire of far-right wing radical rhetoric. Not only did he post about wanting school prayer and guns on demand, “Crooksy” posted the above straight up racist bullshit. Post the 13 stars? That’s one thing. To do so and then make a point to attack Colin Kaepernick directly during the “Black Lives Matter” and kneeling controversies? Bob Brooks is showing you here who he is. He was not yet a candidate for Congress when he put this out. In fact, he hadn’t even staged his coup to be the State President of the Fire Fighters yet. Bob Brooks holds views on race that are way out of line with most civilized people, not just liberals. Most of my Republican friends wouldn’t even post this.
There’s a lot more coming about this “douchebag,” as he called Kaepernick (I don’t even really like Kaepernick, the guy openly says he didn’t vote in 2016, but this is outrageous.). Since his friend in Allentown claims I did this at the behest of a certain candidate, I will go ahead now and confirm that this came from another campaign’s opposition research people, not those of Lamont McClure (he is not paying this individual supplying it, nor is anyone on his behalf.). Later on I will post whole memos on him. Bob Brooks is in way over his head here. There’s a reason even some of his friends called him “Crooksy.” I wonder if they knew just exactly who he was? Do we think Lt. Governor Austin Davis knew he “Crooksy” was?
I’ve had lots of jobs — bartender, Teamster, union leader, 20-year firefighter.
Now, the biggest problem we face is a Washington that burns working people. I’m running for Congress in one of the closest districts to take on the billionaires and big corporations holding us back. pic.twitter.com/KAyxPYYzVz
I remember the 2022 primary very well. A bunch of leftists in Philly and Pittsburgh running around Pennsylvania telling us that John Fetterman was exactly what we needed. He was going to be a fighter, for us. We needed an “authentic, blue collar fighter.” Pennsylvanians were dying for this guy that “doesn’t look like a politician.” The fact that all of the insiders were endorsing Conor Lamb and not siding with Fetterman was only more proof that he was who we needed now. Many of us raised questions. Even some of his opponents raised questions about what kind of guy he was. The progressive network in the big cities knew best though. I hated that he was our nominee, but eventually I voted for him, mostly because I think Dr. Oz is a jackass. There are days I really wish I had left that line blank.
I don’t mind that Fetterman is moderate, or that he supports Israel. I do too, to some extent. I mind that he was a fraud. He sold himself as some leftist/progressive champion, a blue collar guy from Braddock. He was no champion of the left, and he’s realistically just a trust fund kid that picked a tough blue collar town to launch his career in. It was a complete bait and switch. He wasn’t lying to me, I knew he wasn’t good. I still don’t like that he hoodwinked other people.
Well, meet Bob Brooks, now a candidate for PA-7’s Democratic nomination to Congress. Bob Brooks wants you to know that the Democratic Party forgot how to talk to working class people before he came along. Sound familiar? Yes, watch the Fetterman commercial above. It’s the same damn message, verbatim. That’s not shocking. Brooksy is literally using the same team that created the Fetterman myth. They want you to believe that he’ll come along and be different. Brooks, like Fetterman, will be a working class hero who fights for the little guy. Brooks, like Fetterman, is endorsed by Bernie Sanders. He even has the tacit Harrisburg insider support that Fetterman had when he was sitting Lt. Governor. If you just took Brooksy out of his own ads and had John Fetterman do them, there would be no skipping a beat. They both even tell you about how the steel mills left their towns (Brooks had no steel mills in his actual neighborhood). Similarly, neither actually ever did anything about it for those steelworkers, unlike opponents of their’s. Hell, Fetterman chased a black guy down the street with a shot gun because he thought he was shooting a gun- Brooksy probably agreed, he’s right with the 3%’ers on arming everyone. John Fetterman and Bob Brooks are basically the same guy, minus well…
You might be saying to yourself, “okay Rich, but Fetterman won his race.” Yes, he did, and at least for two years that was helpful on some basic level. The main difference is that John Fetterman didn’t stiff his former mother-in-law for $55k. Crooksy? Yeah, he did. Yeah, he never paid it back either. Look, it only took a few internet clicks to find. If I could do that, what will the NRCC and their allies do to defend a seat they paid tens of millions of dollars for? By the time it’s Labor Day in 2026, they will have portrayed him as the symbol of elder abuse and fraud in America. Hell, they’ll probably say he took the $55k to Wind Creek and gambled it all away while he was supposed to be on the clock working. Is it fair? Probably not. They’ll embellish the actual shitty thing he did and make it a new inquisition. Sure, Fetterman was a mess by the Fall of 2022, but he was running against a quack who made a fool of himself every time he spoke. Mackenzie just won’t speak. Problem solved for them. The Republican media machine will beat this guy over the head so badly with his transgressions that he’ll have to pick up and move after the race. That’s how politics are.
This is the choice that Democrats have to face on Brooks. Under the best case scenario, you get a carbon copy of the John Fetterman who mislead you on who he was and disappointed you as a Senator. These guys say the exact same things at the behest of the exact same people, even down to the talking points about “corporate pac money” and “stock trading” that neither of them is going to do shit about in Congress. And that’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenario? You’re nominating a “deadbeat” that the Republican Party will beat to death with the negatives that could be found without a Lexus Nexus account. You tell me what’s worse?
Would you rather compete in more districts or less? More states or less? The answer is obvious. Anyone in their right mind knows the answer. You would rather compete in more places because it gives you a better chance to win majorities.
Which party is doing a better job of that? The answer is emphatically not the Democratic Party. Let’s start out by stating the obvious- there are simply less blue states than red states, and less red states in which a good Democratic candidate can compete. The map for Democrats to win elections, whether it be for President or state legislators, is tighter and tighter every time. Since President Obama’s re-election ended, more and more of the nation’s land looks red. Plenty of people respond to that with “so what, land can’t vote.” Unfortunately in a federal system, geography is actually important.
Let’s start with the Presidential map. President Obama won 27 states, a district in Nebraska, and Washington, D.C., all at least once in his two runs. Hillary Clinton won 20 states and Washington in 2016. Joe Biden did a bit better, carrying 25 states, Washington, D.C., and Nebraska’s second district in 2020. Kamala Harris only won 19 states, Washington, D.C., and Nebraska’s second in 2024. The states of Iowa, Ohio, and Florida have become red bastions. The states of Indiana and Missouri have gone from super competitive in 2008 to dead red. No Democrat has been able to pull North Carolina back in since 2008. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin all went from narrow Democrat states from 1988 to 2012, to completely swing states that Trump has won twice. Even with the positive trends in Arizona and Georgia, the map is becoming increasingly difficult for a Democratic candidate to win. States like Texas that Democrats believed would come their way because of demographics are certainly not coming to the Democratic column soon. With current trend lines, Democrats basically will have traded Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina from lean Dem states to somewhere between swing to red, in exchange for Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico as blue states, and Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona as swing states, and we lost all three last year.
The Senate outlook is even more bleak. Increasingly, there aren’t Democrats winning red states or Republicans winning blue states. If you told a 20 something year old that Democrats not that long ago held both Senate seats in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, they’d think you’re on crack. If you told them that Tom Harkin used to not only win Iowa, but be well liked, they’d laugh. If you told them we recently held seats in Missouri and Indiana, they’d not believe you. Florida? Ohio? No. With maybe 19 states leaning to the Democratic side, there’s just not enough in play. There are 25 states that Trump won three times, another five he won twice, and one more he won this time, so Republicans have at least 31 states to battle in. Tack on Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota as states he was competitive in, and you have a GOP battle field right now of about 68 Senate seats they can realistically win. At best, the Democrats look like they could pull off 25 states, so they can maybe put 50 states on the board. If Ohio, Florida, and Iowa don’t look any better in 2026, they may literally need to run the table every election to control the Senate moving forward.
Governor races are slightly better- every once in a while you see someone win in a state they shouldn’t, from both sides. Even so, the re-districting battle that is playing out right now is probably not going to help that. In fact, with the outsized role cultural and public health fights in the states are starting to play in our politics, it could become harder and harder to get elected as a Governor in a state where the other party is the dominant political party.
And of course, this gets me to legislative races. Yes, the House of Representatives has been fairly competitive in recent years. Here’s the ugly reality though- The GOP has controlled the House for 17 of the first 25 years. Here in Pennsylvania, they controlled the Senate for all 25 years, and the House entirely for 18 of the last 25 years, and with a Republican Speaker for 20 of the last 25 years. This was during a period when the Voting Right’s Act protected minority representation more than it does now, and during a period where we held the White House for 12 of the 25 years. Uninhibited by the Voting Rights Act or an Executive Branch that will enforce it, the GOP is likely to win a race-to-the-bottom re-districting fight, nationally. Democrats have not faired all that well even under friendlier conditions.
What’s worse to consider is exactly how the Republicans have taken control. After President Obama’s victories, a lot of the “smart kids” inside the Beltway and in leadership positions within the party said “demographics are destiny,” and were going to kill the Republican Party as they lost the “emerging electorate.” They couldn’t have been more wrong. Trump ran a huge chunk of his 2024 campaign railing against transgender people. His supporters basically called Vice-President Kamala Harris a “DEI hire,” and impugned her intelligence. They at times accused her of sleeping her way to the top. Against both Hillary and Kamala, Trump backers raised doubts about women in leadership roles. Trump has spent his Presidency destroying DEI programs in the public and private sector, invading diverse cities with law enforcement and troops, and deporting anyone he can. Even with all that, he has made gains among minority voters. He has locked down anywhere rural in America. He has boxed Democrats into a smaller and smaller playing field.
I blame a ton of this all on the operative class in the Democratic Party, who used fancy algorithms to defend being uncompetitive at all with voters and places they didn’t really like. I also blame this to some extent on a donor class and activist that is way out of touch with what actual voters want the Democratic Party to do. So much of Barack Obama’s campaigns was not about his identity and ideology, and more so about saving jobs for blue collar folks in Michigan and Wisconsin, and it worked. This isn’t an either/or though. You can’t watch Roe v. Wade be overturned and say “we’ll ignore that, women won’t care.” Of course you have to respond to actual harm done in culture wars. Conceding all areas that aren’t culturally progressive though is a losing message. Taking positions that most people hate, like defending “intifada” or slamming Sydney Sweeney for saying she’s hot, just makes us look like weirdos. There’s really no constituency for it. Fighting about niche cultural issues has little appeal, even to people who voted for President Obama. What we should have learned from Hillary Clinton’s loss was that the combination of people who hate us on cultural issues and the people who just don’t give a shit about some of them, makes up a majority. We spent most of the last decade making our message “Donald Trump is unacceptably bad,” and a majority of people either disagreed or shrugged their shoulders.
We’re not going to live in the enlightened utopia that Democrats wish for. Running inauthentic “blue collar” messengers like John Fetterman isn’t going to appease anyone either. No, they don’t want the angry cultural leftist, but no, they also don’t want a bunch of Ivy League educated, trust funded socialists either. They can tell the difference between a blue collar guy and a deadbeat like Bernie Sanders too. They want a better deal from their government, and maybe none of that “globalize the intifada” garbage. Makes sense. None of that will change though until we change our “Democratic political industry” complex altogether. We’re just going to keep putting forward candidates who don’t relate at all.
I do hate picking up the phone, but every once in a while I do it, and hear some interesting rumors. The latest one has nothing to do with PA-7 (thank god), but instead has everything to do with the 18th State Senate District. The district is all of Northampton County besides the Northwest corner, and the portion of Bethlehem City in Lehigh County. Since 1998, that district has belonged to Senator Lisa Boscola, and she generally wins by a lot. For most of the last six decades (58 years), the seat has either been held by Jeanette Reibman or Boscola. It has been competitive like once in my lifetime, when Joe Uliana won the seat by like 2 votes over Bob Freeman, entirely because of the 1994 Republican wave. Otherwise it’s basically been the two Democratic women beating the bejesus out of whoever runs against them.
Senator Boscola isn’t a big favorite of progressive activists, but she has been highly effective at securing resources for the communities in her district. Her moderate tendencies make her very hard to beat in a general election that is centered in heavily moderate Northampton County. Reportedly though she has finally ruffled enough feathers to draw fire from her left. Lehigh County Commissioner at-large Jon Irons is reportedly considering primarying Boscola in 2026. Irons has been a favorite of the progressive community, and reportedly there are people encouraging him. Irons was born in Ecuador, raised in suburban Chicago, and moved here when his wife took a job at Lehigh, about a decade ago. From his website, he tells us “what he cares about and loves:”
Outside of work, I have been a committed volunteer with a number of social justice organizations. I have collected signatures in support of inclusionary zoning in Allentown, hosted city council debates, and volunteered for a number of political campaigns including Greg Edwards for Congress in 2018. Most recently, I have served as a member-leader with Lehigh Valley Stands Up where we have supported candidates for local office, organized ballot initiatives in Lehigh County and Allentown, and built a restorative, relational organizing community of working class resident’s committed to change through building political power.
I am also an avid photographer, bird watcher, and musician. I enjoy hiking in the many parks and trails throughout the county. I bike the D&L trail north and south, and I walk my dog, Dingo, every day in our West Bethlehem neighborhood. The Lehigh Valley has so much to offer, and I’ve enjoyed building and working for my community in every way I can to make a caring, empathetic, connected, and sustainable world.
Anyone is welcome to run for any office they want. From my vantage point though, the map is not in his favor here. For one, he is way, way behind in name recognition in this district, because he has only represented the West Bethlehem voters. The other thing I see here is that he represents a considerably more progressive county than Northampton, and some of his past positions would be a very hard sell to that electorate. In particular, I think his positions on immigration and crime would probably be under water in the primary, let alone a general election in Northampton County. On the flip side, if the primary electorate is feeling positive about Carol Obando-Derstine in the Congressional primary, they have very similar stories as immigrants, highly educated people, and progressives. The biggest problem here? Money. The general public likes Senator Boscola. Not only would Irons, or anyone else, need to introduce themselves and build up some name recognition with voters who don’t know them, they also would have to change the public’s mind about Boscola. In the past I’ve told people who bring this up that they would need $600k if Boscola doesn’t decide to spend against them, just to compete. I’ve got news though- Senator Boscola would absolutely spend to get her message out. That probably means it would take north of a million bucks to have a chance. I don’t see that money coming in the Lehigh Valley.
Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is the kind of working class hero who stiffs his mother-in-law for $55,000, so you know he’s an authority on helping out the little guy. Like his hero, Deadbeat Bernie Sanders, Crooksy thinks the Democratic Party sucks. They apparently don’t want to talk to working class people, Crooksy says:
His campaign is playing up his volunteerism as a youth baseball coach and his tattoo: a bulldog in a fire helmet.
“The party of labor, I believe, is the Democrat Party, but I don’t think the Democrat Party talks about or to the working class people anymore, and I think we need to get back to that,” Brooks said in an interview. “The Republicans, they talked about us, they talk to us, but then they go down to DC and they vote against us.”
Here’s what you need to know- Bob Brooks is a fraud, he’s a poor man’s version of John Fetterman. “Oh look at me, I have tattoos, Bernie Sanders loves me, and I say the word middle class and how the Democratic Party sucks, three times in every paragraph that comes out of my mouth!” Of course I was against John Fetterman in 2022, but you know, that’s history. Brooks has the same media team trying to create a picture of him that is very similar to the one Fetterman began with. They’re flat out lying to you. This guy is a blue collar hero like milk from last month is still good for you. Kind of like he’s “endorsed by Josh Shapiro,” but Shapiro has said that nowhere.
Bob Brooks told folks he had the support of the Governor. I guess he meant the Lt. Governor. He also claimed Hakeem Jeffries himself wanted him to run. Maybe he meant Deadbeat Bernie Sanders. Then there was his claim that labor was going to run over to support his campaign. I guess he only meant SEIU and his own Fire Fighters union.
I suppose Bobby found some friends though, as you can see in his graphic above- a bunch of State Legislators who don’t live in the 7th Congressional District. You have Representatives and Senators from as close as Mt. Pocono and Scranton, or Philadelphia and lower Bucks County to the South, and as far as from Harrisburg and west of Pittsburgh, and hell, even Erie. What you don’t see is either Democratic State Senator from the Lehigh Valley. You don’t see any of Allentown’s Democratic State Representatives, either of Bethlehem’s, or the one in Easton. You don’t see the Lehigh County Executive, the former Democratic Congresswoman, or any local Lehigh Valley politician. No one here, who actually has to deal with nominating Bob Brooks actually wants to nominate Bob Brooks. He has a laundry list of Democratic politicians from the rest of the state, all of whom are making the political calculation that it’s good politics to support a statewide union President in some other district. I get it. It’s very misleading though. It’s probably helping him raise money, his campaign is claiming to have raised $100k in the first 24 hours, but I’m sure that’s largely from outside of the Lehigh Valley too, like an other candidate.
Maybe the problem for Brooks is too many people in PA-7 know too much. The stakes in the Lehigh Valley are too high to back a candidate who probably won’t be able to defend himself when the Republicans come for him. He calls himself a “family man” on his website, but the conduct doesn’t match the words.
This whole campaign is a John Fetterman styled bait and switch. Run as one thing, be another. Build all kinds of support from people not here, be vague with everything, then be something totally different. Not coincidentally some of the same folks are involved. I have a feeling the disappointment will come earlier this time. There’s a reason they call this man Crooksy.
Well, it was finally time for Bob Brooks to announce his run for Congress yesterday. When this saga all began, there were promises of the Governor endorsing Brooks and calling on everyone else to drop out, as well as a wave of unions switching their endorsements to back Brooks. Instead what we got was the Lieutenant Governor that like 3% of the Lehigh Valley has heard of, the farce of an endorsement from SEIU, Brooks own Fire Fighters union, and a Congressman that was the warm up act for Bernie Sanders in Bethlehem. Oh, and we got Bernie Sanders, the two-time Presidential Primary loser. What a shock. Bernie certainly sees a lot of himself in Bob.
The one area they are a perfect match in is running campaigns to be a spoiler. Long after he had no chance at victory, Bernie Sanders continued his campaign for President in 2016, doing harm to Hillary Clinton. Bob has no pathway to victory in this race, but he’s unwittingly running to throw this race too.
When you get down to it, it makes complete sense Bernie Sanders would pick Bob Brooks to be his candidate in PA-7. It also makes sense that the rest of the JV squad was sent in to endorse instead of the Governor, Democratic Leader of the House, and everyone else they promised. The birds of the feather really did flock together.
Well, let’s try again. This is like the fourth time that Bob Brooks has been set to announce he’s entering the race for Congress. Maybe this time he means it. Then again, now that I’m writing it, I doubt it. But he’s supposed to announce his candidacy today though.
Bob Brooks is president of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association and a small business owner. He served more than 20 years as a firefighter and EMT for the city of Bethlehem before retiring in March. He has taken on many public safety leadership positions locally and statewide, including on Governor Josh Shapiro’s transition committee on emergency management as a member of the Pennsylvania State Fire Advisory Board. He has coached many levels of baseball in the community, most recently at Nazareth Area High School. Do you find this a very convincing, somewhat convincing, or not a convincing reason to vote for Bob Brooks?
I dunno, I feel like the buzzwords “firefighter,” “small business,” and “Shapiro” were enough positives, but baseball coach didn’t move anyone? Yet no one seemed to care.
While this seems foolish to me, others disagree. According to reports, SEIU will be endorsing rather quickly in this race. After weeks of claiming the Governor will endorse on day one, reports are now that he will not endorse at all in this race. In the least shocking news of the race, the IAFF will reportedly switch their endorsement to their brother in arms, as they actually should. If you listen to at least one of their leaders though, they’re switching because I was too mean to the guy here. I doubt I actually hurt someone’s feelings if they’re tough enough to run into a fire, but politics is a contact sport. Toughen up, buttercup.
At the top I posted a screenshot of the text message Brooks agreed to send on the behalf of his now opponent, Lamont McClure, endorsing him earlier in this race. One line really stands out for me, because it explains exactly why this cynical candidacy shouldn’t get off the ground:
“I know a thing or two about putting out fires, but the one going on in the Republican-controlled Congress is too big, even for me.”
Philadelphia State Senator Sharif Street has served as the Chairman of the PA Dems since 2022, and was Vice-Chair for four years before that. He recently announced his candidacy for Congress in PA-3, and today he stepped down as party chair.
He wrote the membership:
Dear Member of State Committee:
Today, I’m announcing that I will step down as Chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, effective upon the election of my successor at our next State Committee meeting on September 6, 2025.
This was not an easy decision—but it is the right one. I took on this role to build a Democratic Party that was more inclusive, more united, and more powerful. Over the past few years, I’m proud to say we’ve done exactly that—bringing more voices into the party, building stronger coalitions, and delivering historic victories across the state. Now, as I focus on my campaign for Congress, I believe it’s time to make space for the next chapter of leadership—so our party can continue to grow, win our crucial judicial elections this fall, and then turn toward reelecting our Governor and Lieutenant Governor, flipping congressional seats to take back control of Congress, and defeating Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda once and for all.
I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together. When I was elected to the State Senate in 2016, the outlook for Democrats in Pennsylvania was grim. Donald Trump carried the state, Republicans held commanding majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, and Democrats were vastly outnumbered in our congressional delegation. That year, I was the only non-incumbent Democrat to win a seat in the State Senate—joining a caucus that had just been reduced to only 16 members, the smallest Senate Democratic caucus of my lifetime. It was clear that if we wanted a different future, we had to organize for it.
That’s why I ran for a leadership role in the Democratic Party in 2018—because I believed we had the power to rebuild, and I knew we couldn’t afford to wait.
During my four years as Vice Chair, we began to turn the tide. In 2018, we flipped key congressional seats and secured a Democratic majority in the U.S. House from Pennsylvania for the first time in years. Then in 2020, after days of national uncertainty, Pennsylvania delivered the decisive votes that sent Joe Biden to the White House—defeating Donald Trump at the ballot box and shifting the direction of the country. I was proud to be an active Vice Chair during that fight, helping to organize and energize our diverse Democratic coalition when the stakes were at their highest
When I became Chair in 2022, we carried that momentum forward and turned it into sustained, historic wins. We helped Josh Shapiro secure a groundbreaking victory—becoming the first Democratic Governor in Pennsylvania history to succeed another Democrat. We flipped a U.S. Senate seat, reclaimed the State House for the first time in over a decade, and made hard-fought gains in the State Senate. In 2023, we swept all four statewide judicial elections—securing our Democratic supermajority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
2024 was a difficult year for Democrats across the country. Donald Trump carried every major battleground state, and Republicans made gains at the federal level—including here in Pennsylvania. But even as we faced those national setbacks, Pennsylvania Democrats built a firewall in state and local races—defending our one-seat majority in the State House and maintaining our position in the State Senate. Thanks to our investment in local leaders and message-driven organizing, we ended the year with no net losses in the General Assembly and a party infrastructure that proved its staying power.
The next year made clear that our local strength remained intact. In 2025, we flipped a deep-red State Senate seat in Lancaster County during a special election—bringing us to just two seats shy of a majority, the closest Democrats have been to flipping the chamber in a generation. It puts us in our strongest position yet heading into next year.
These victories were no accident. They were built from the ground up—by county chairs, committee members, organizers, and everyday Democrats who gave their time, energy, and heart to this party. My job was to elevate their work—and I was honored to do it.
I want to thank Governor Josh Shapiro for his leadership and his commitment to growing a strong, unified Democratic Party in Pennsylvania. Under his leadership, our party has continued to build momentum and deliver results for working families across the Commonwealth. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved alongside his administration, and I look forward to working with him to keep moving Pennsylvania forward.
When I first campaigned for Chair, I promised to build bridges—bringing together Black voters who felt taken for granted, rural voters who felt overlooked, and progressives who felt shut out. As the first Black man and the first Muslim ever elected Chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, I knew representation wasn’t just symbolic—it was strategic. We built real power by forging a coalition that could win. And going forward, I remain committed to strengthening those voices—alongside labor, young people, and all those fighting to build a more just, inclusive, and energized Democratic Party.
To every Democrat who stood with me—thank you. We’ve made progress that will last far beyond my tenure. And while I may be stepping down as Chair, I’m not stepping away from this work. I’m running for Congress to keep fighting for the people of Pennsylvania—and I’ll keep fighting with you, every step of the way.
Let’s finish the job.
Senator Sharif Street
Chair, Pennsylvania Democratic Party
I’m not going to endorse someone in PA-3 today, but I will say that I always found Senator Street agreeable to work with when I was running statewide Judicial candidates. This was a job he really wanted and I know he’s not giving it up lightly, but he’s on to bigger things, I suppose.
Out of town Republican running for the Democratic Congressional nomination Ryan Crosswell found Northampton County over the weekend to meet the Democrats there and ask for their support for him for Congress. Good for him honestly. Unfortunately, I hear it went very badly. One candidate called him an opportunist in her speech, for which she is spot on. Another noted his “in-artful use of a political metaphor.” I’m down the beach this week and didn’t get to see the bumbling, blunder filled speech, so I asked some people what he said. Apparently he claimed he’s been fighting the nomination of Emil Bove to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Now of course that’s silly- Crosswell is no longer at the Justice Department, after “bravely” cutting and running from his former post, he’s also not a Senator or staffer dealing with the nomination, and there’s no public record anywhere of him leading some kind of protest. I’m glad he opposes Trump’s henchman for the nomination, but based on what? He’s opposed to unions too. Neither one left Trump after his flunkies attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Both of them were fine with Trump when the high court struck down Roe v. Wade. Based on their long held Republican views, when Crosswell registered as a Republican in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Washington D.C., I would presume Mr. Crosswell is for this nomination. I guess he’s not though, this time. Maybe there’s a primary coming up, or something.
Apocalypse Vibes 