Pragmatic Democrats Seek to Rebuild in PA
It’s safe to say that most Pennsylvania Democrats are chastened by their loss of the White House, the U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Casey, and three row offices. In 2016, many Democrats saw Donald J. Trump as illegitimate, but that’s harder to do now after he won the popular as well as electoral vote. How will Democrats respond to voters in the second Trump administration and rebuild their political brand?
Sen. John Fetterman is a high-profile example of how some Democrats expect to win back voters: by showing that they are willing to work with President Trump. Since the election, Fetterman has proved amenable to the president, meeting with him in Mar-a-Lago and voting for several of his Cabinet nominees. This has made Fetterman more popular with Republican voters, but Democrats may now view him as unreliable, as they saw former Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Fetterman’s willingness to join Republicans in voting to put Dr. Mehmet Oz in charge of Medicare and Medicaid makes for great political theater, though not all Democrats are enjoying the show.
Pennsylvania Go. Josh Shapiro is the consummate pragmatist, but he’s also challenged the administration. The Trump/Musk shock-and-awe campaign of cutting jobs and freezing spending is starting to have real-world effects here in the commonwealth. Shapiro launched a lawsuit against the federal government for freezing various allocated funds that totaled $2.1 billion. His lawsuit has proven successful. Left unresolved are the overhead costs of the state’s $1.8 billion in NIH funding for 2024, the lion’s share going to the Universities of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. Both Pitt and Penn have frozen admissions to all doctoral programs.
Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton is another pragmatist. Like Shapiro, she argues that the reality of divided government means compromise. “Divided government calls for pragmatic governance,” she responded by email. “It means that everything we accomplish in the Pennsylvania General Assembly must be bipartisan, and so we must look for opportunities to find broadly supported solutions that still meet the basic needs of those who elected us.”
https://www.khq.com/pragmatic-democrats-seek-to-rebuild-in-pa/article_e5e9a736-7bbf-581f-bffc-d934e59b1bd9.html