Democrat Dan McCaffery, a former Philadelphia prosecutor who currently sits on the statewide appellate court, has won the election for an open seat on Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, the Associated Press projects.
Democrats now will hold a 5-2 majority on highest court in the Commonwealth.
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McCaffery, 59, currently sits on the statewide Superior Court. He defeated Republican Carolyn Carluccio, 63, a Montgomery County judge and a former federal prosecutor and public defender.
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McCaffery, a former Philadelphia judge and prosecutor, had positioned himself as a defender of abortion rights and other rights that he said Democrats had fought for, but were under threat from the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
McCaffery’s victory is the latest for abortion rights proponents in a string of races around the country, including a pivotal state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin where abortion was the top issue.
Like in Wisconsin, Democrats in Pennsylvania’s high court race focused on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade and end nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections — making it a key avenue to attack Carluccio.
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Carluccio tried to avoid that debate, saying the issue didn’t belong in the race since state law makes abortion legal through 24 weeks. She sought to avoid publicly expressing an opinion on the issue, though she was endorsed by anti-abortion groups.
More than $20 million — believed to be a state record for a judicial campaign — flowed into the race, much of it from billionaire Jeffrey Yass, who supported Carluccio, and labor unions and trial lawyers that backed McCaffery.
The race did not change the fact that Democrats have a majority on the seven-seat bench. Democrats held a 4-2 majority with an open seat following the death last year of Chief Justice Max Baer, a Democrat.
Justices on the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania serve 10-year terms before they must run for retention to stay on the court. Justices must step down from their positions at age 75.
McCaffery will join a bench that has issued pivotal decisions on major election-related cases.
That includes throwing out GOP-drawn congressional districts as unconstitutionally gerrymandered and rejecting a Republican effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state after Donald Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
It also upheld the constitutionality of the state’s expansive mail-in voting law and settled a variety of voting-related disputes before the 2020 election, spurring an outcry from Republicans. Meanwhile, it settled a disagreement over drawing new congressional districts and picked the map that is currently in use in Pennsylvania.
Currently, the court is examining a challenge to a state law that restricts the use of public funds to help women get abortions as well as Philadelphia’s challenge to a law barring it and other municipalities from restricting the sale and possession of guns.
Another politically charged case — former Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to fight global warming by making power plant owners pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions — also may come before it.
