Pennsylvania 2025 Primary Election

Pennsylvania holds its primary elections on Tuesday, May 20. On the ballot are nominations by the Republican and Democratic parties for satewide judicial offices, and for nominations for county, district judge, constable, municipal and school district offices, as well as nominations for precinct election officials. Nominations will be made for one seat each on the two state appeals courts, the Superior and Commonwealth Courts. Polls are open from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM, but no-excuse mail-in voting and absentee ballot voting are available, if the deadline for applying has been met. In some districts, voters will be voting on ballot questions. As the Keystone State’s primaries are closed, only members of each party may vote in their own party’s primary, but all voters may vote on ballot questions. Since the rise of Donald Trump and Trumpism in the Republican Party, many Republicans and conservatives have left the GOP, registering in Pennsylvania as non-partisan, as third party members, or even as Democrats, while some of us have remained Republicans so we can vote against Trumpist candidates, because Trumpism is not conservative, but a populist mix of protectionism, nativism, and isolationism. Whether in the Republican or Democratic party primary, conservatives should either vote for the least Trumpist or least liberal candidates, respectively, or if there are not any such acceptable candidates, write in the names of principled conservative, qualified candidates of good character, instead of acquiescing to candidates whose views are anathema to conservatism and thereby encouraging more populist candidates or candidates of poor moral character. Unless election reforms like jungle primaries, ranked choice voting or approval voting are adopted in Pennsylvania, as they have been elsewhere, principled conservatives should seriously contemplate founding a center-right party, like the pre-Trump Republican Party, or as exists in many foreign States, where it is often successful in parliamentary elections against both the far-left and the far-right/Trumpist populist parties.