Dems Declare Shock Victory on Hallowed MAGA Turf

Pennsylvania Democrats have claimed a shock victory on hallowed MAGA turf, with a near 30-year GOP stranglehold seemingly broken.

Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced on X early on Wednesday morning that Brandon Dukes “just flipped a state House District in Butler County,” as The New York Times, using Associated Press figures, reported that he has edged out Republican Scott Timko by just 88 votes, with more than 95 percent of the votes counted.

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“I’m still processing this. We just flipped a Trump +18 seat, and we flipped a red seat that’s been red for almost 30 years,” Dukes told the Cranberry Eagle newspaper. “We made history.”

The winner will serve the remainder of former Republican state Rep. Stephenie Scialabba’s term in the district, which covers the southwestern corner of the county, after the 35-year-old announced on March 24 that she was leaving her position at the end of that month to focus on her young son, Teddy.

If Dukes gets over the line, Pennsylvania House Democrats would enjoy a two-seat majority in the chamber until November, when Scialabba leaves, and Dukes and Timko are back on the ballot.

“One election down, one election to go,” Dukes, who works in the commercial construction sector for a national bank and had the endorsement of former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, said Tuesday night.

“Special elections sometimes produce special results,” Timko said, not ready to concede. Associated Press had not called the race by early Wednesday morning, and Axios noted that “provisional and overseas ballots still need to be counted.”

Shapiro noted that the district Dukes is contesting, Scialabba won by 30 points in 2024. Earlier this year, a blue wave flipped seats in Fort Worth, Texas, and Palm Beach County, Florida.

“I consider myself a canary in the coal mine,” Dukes warned Republicans last week.

Butler County is also where President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in July 2024 while speaking at an open-air rally. Scialabba was seated in the front row.

Shapiro urged people at the time to “remember that while we may be Democrats or Republicans above all else, we are Americans.”

The likely victory is all the more remarkable given that Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district by almost two to one. Even Timko’s mother thought that this disparity would be telling.

“I am really shocked,” Claudia Timko said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I felt very positive today, especially at the polls. It seemed like the people turning out for Scott was 2 to 1.”

In a bid to ensure he got Scialabba’s seat, the party rallied around Timko after a narrow primary victory in May. Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee Executive Director Madeline Zann thinks she knows why the effort looks to have failed.