Thomas narrowly leads Pennycuick in Pennsylvania’s 24th Senate District

Chaz Nuttycombe on shapiro's performance

Shapiro is underperforming here, but that's not unusual.

Josh Shapiro is "only" doing 6 points better in SD-24 among decided and leaning voters than he did in the district during the 2022 gubernatorial election. That'd track with what our forecast shows in the Governor race statewide, with Shapiro expected to win by 20 points statewide after winning by 15 points in 2022. But compared to his performance in our other state legislative polls this cycle, he's actually underperforming. When averaging all of our polls since August, the average swing toward Shapiro from 2022 is 9.1%. In SD-24, there's only a 5.8% swing. Shapiro, who served on the Montgomery County Board before becoming Attorney General, has underperformed in this district before based on data in DRA2020. When comparing the presidential and attorney general election results in 2016 and 2020 within SD-24, Shapiro ran 5.9% behind his 2016 statewide performance and 2.95% behind his 2020 statewide performance.

State Navigate - Pennsylvania SD-24 poll briefing - PDF page 8.

Mary Radcliffe on the spoiler effect

Schonewolf's voters lean Democratic, but the sample is too thin to be sure.

Green candidate Mike Schonewolf draws about 3% of the likely-voter vote, and by party ID his support is almost evenly split: roughly 1 to 2% of Democrats, 2% of Republicans, and 7% of independents. By behavior, though, his voters lean Democratic. They favor Josh Shapiro over Stacy Garrity 50% to 31% in the governor's race, and recalled backing Kamala Harris over Donald Trump 44% to 24% in 2024. That hints Schonewolf may pull a little more from Chris Thomas than from Tracy Pennycuick, which matters in a race this close. The heavy caveat: this rests on only about 16 weighted Green voters, far below the roughly 40 needed for a reliable read, so it should be treated as a flag to watch rather than a firm conclusion.

State Navigate - Pennsylvania SD-24 poll briefing - PDF page 8.

Chaz Nuttycombe on young voter enthusiasm gap

Republicans' disaffected voters skew younger, a national trend.

Republicans seem to be dropping off the face of the Earth according to many Republican anecdotes (e.g. lack of party volunteers, smaller crowds at rallies) and the start of early voting data across the country (e.g. Virginia). These stories and analyses of data may seem familiar to anyone who witnessed the 2025 Virginia election, when Republican activists complained of lack of volunteers, Republican candidates drew fewer crowds than four years before, and by Election Day it seemed that most Republicans forgot there was an election. It seems all but inevitable that nationwide, a very favorable environment akin to 2018 for Democrats is expected. But who are these Republicans who are less likely to vote? Besides the obvious answer of low propensity minority voters that swung to Trump in 2024, an underdiscussed group are Republican voters under the age of 45 (Millennials and Zoomers).

When examining the vote likelihood of Democrats and Republicans (both by party registration and party ID) under the age of 45, Democrats have a double-digit advantage amongst the most motivated voters who have a ~90% chance of showing up to vote. When comparing this level of voting likelihood to voters over the age of 45, Democrats have just a 3-4 point advantage.

State Navigate - Pennsylvania SD-24 poll briefing - PDF page 9.