The Pennsylvania race serving as a test of Democrats’ evolving democracy message

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — Republican Rep. Scott Perry was one of Donald Trump’s top congressional allies in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. But this year, even his Democratic challenger says her message about upholding democracy was not the main point of her campaign in this increasingly suburbanized — and competitive — district.

“While there are some people who are still all cranked up about Jan. 6, it has evolved,” said Janelle Stelson, the Democrat looking to unseat Perry in this central Pennsylvania district. She said food, gas, housing and health care costs were “the everyday things that resonate more with people than Jan. 6, even though nobody likes that and didn't want their votes overturned.”

Like other Democrats, Stelson used the Jan. 6 riot as one plank in a broader message, wrapping democratic norms into an argument about Republican extremism.

It’s a strategy that has continued to evolve in the years after the 2021 Capitol riot. Democrats from Kamala Harris to candidates further down the ballot have focused on abortion rights and the economy, but they’ve also recognized the power of issues of upholding democracy to energize their base and peel off moderate Republicans who may be disaffected with their party.

National polling typically shows preserving democracy as the top issue for voters — or one of the top, next to topics like the economy. And the partisan divides are stark: A recent national Gallup survey found that Republicans are more likely to list the economy as a top issue, while Democrats say democracy. If a Democrat is relying solely on democracy messaging to get those crossover votes, that message might not resonate.

Harris highlighted former Trump chief of staff John Kelly’s comment that Trump is a “fascist” and held her closing message rally on the Ellipse last week — an intentional contrast with Trump’s speech before the Capitol riot in 2021 at the same site. But much of her advertising focuses on her background, abortion rights and the economy.

Affordability and abortion rights were the two top issues for local voters in Pennsylvania’s 10th District, Stelson said in an interview at her campaign office. The third: “broken Washington,” a broader idea about polarization, extremism and congressional gridlock. That includes — but is more than — concerns about the attack on the Capitol and Trump’s and Perry’s efforts to subvert the election results, she said.

In a recent ad, she noted that Perry “spread the nutty conspiracy theory that Italian satellites rigged the last election” — a line that is sandwiched in between calling him a lying “career politician” and warning that he’ll “raise taxes and cut Social Security.” In her closing statement during her only debate with Perry, she called him out for being “investigated by the FBI” and accused him of wrongdoing, saying that “you don’t ask for a pardon if you haven’t done anything wrong.” (Perry has denied seeking a pardon.)

Perry played a pivotal role in pushing for an eleventh-hour leadership change at the Justice Department to help facilitate Trump's effort to subvert the 2020 election results when the department's leaders balked at promoting false claims of voter fraud. Perry's phone was seized by the FBI in August 2022 as part of an investigation into those efforts, but there's no indication he is a target of any criminal probe.

In the debate with Stelson, he said he is “not under investigation” and it is a “falsehood … that is a propagation by my opponents on the left that is often parroted by the mainstream media.”

Perry’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

In conversations with voters in Perry’s district, very few of those who said they’re supporting Stelson proactively brought up democracy as a top issue, instead saying abortion and cost of living are more top-of-mind. When asked whether democracy is a motivating factor, they said it is — though it pales in comparison to other topics.

Perry’s supporters, meanwhile, brushed it off.

“We don’t want to hear about Jan. 6 anymore,” said Terri Binette, who’s backing Perry. “Nobody wants to stay there. What good will that do?”

That divide is the problem with trying to rely on democracy messaging to win in this type of district, said Craig Snyder of Republicans Against Perry: Opinions about Jan. 6 are “baked in.”

“I don't think people are looking at how they vote for Congress, really, in terms of, ‘Is this person going to save or hurt democracy?’” he said. Those issues matter, he added, but they’re less effective for persuading swing voters, especially when Perry hasn’t been charged with a crime. “It's not like there's this looming cloud over his head related to Jan. 6. There was at one point, but nothing's come to pass, and so I just don't think that's going to be the primary motivator for the swing voters.”

Heading into the midterms, Democrats grappled with just how effective messaging on democracy would be as they went up against scores of candidates who echoed unfounded claims about the 2020 election being stolen.

Many of those election deniers ended up losing their elections. But while some Democratic candidates did lean into democracy messaging, it had been largely overshadowed by voter outreach concerning abortion-rights in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe.

“In ’22, I think everyone was like, ‘What the hell just happened?’” said Brian Lemek, executive director of Defend the Vote, a group backing what it considers pro-democracy candidates, including Stelson. “It just had to set in for people, and we really did have to kind of understand and appreciate the real threat here.”

Perry won reelection in those midterms by about 8 points, though Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro won the district that year. Democrats are bullish that Stelson, a former longtime TV anchor who entered with more established name ID than a typical first-time candidate, can block Perry from a seventh term. She proved to be a strong fundraiser, and outraised and outspent the incumbent. In a sign of GOP concern, national Republicans have come to Perry’s aid, dropping millions on advertising in the race. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer came to the district to stump for Perry in recent days, following a visit in the district from Speaker Mike Johnson.

If Stelson wins, it won’t be because of solely what transpired after the 2020 election. And other candidates are taking the same approach.

In Wisconsin’s 3rd District, which Trump won in 2020, Democrat Rebecca Cooke is looking to unseat Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who attended the Jan. 6 rally but never entered the Capitol that day. She, too, has said that it is not the only focus of her campaign because voters consistently raise concerns about being able to afford necessities like groceries.

Democrat Lucas Kunce, who’s running against Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), has occasionally mentioned the incumbent pumping his fist to encourage protesters that day, but he’s also said that Jan. 6 “is just one piece of the puzzle.”

Even on the presidential level, Harris is balancing how she messages on democracy. Some Democrats expressed concerns that she should spend the final stretch of her campaign boosting her biography rather than solely hitting Trump.

During her rally on the Ellipse last week, she mentioned the word “democracy” only once.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.