In politically riven Pennsylvania, primary voters will pick candidates in presidential contest year

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The two parties in Pennsylvania’s state House and its congressional delegation are nearly evenly divided, and that won’t change once results are in from next week’s primary election.

But come November, the candidates the parties will select April 23 for hundreds of legislative seats could alter what has been years of policy paralysis in Harrisburg and the similar partisan deadlock in Congress.

The state’s voters will also cast primary ballots for this year’s marquee contests for president and U.S. Senate. Democratic incumbents Joe Biden and Bob Casey and Republican challengers Donald Trump and Dave McCormick are shoo-ins to appear on the fall ballot.

Both parties will pick candidates for state attorney general, which was in Republican hands before Democrats went on a winning streak starting in 2012.

In the two other statewide “row office” contests, Republicans Stacy Garrity, the treasurer, and Tim DeFoor, the auditor general, will find out which Democrats will try to unseat them in the fall.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

It took months and several special elections before Democrats were able to nail down their return to majority control of the state House last year, elevating one of their own to speaker in a chamber where the partisan breakdown is now 102-100. One seat, in a Poconos district where a Republican resigned in February, is vacant and will be filled by special election on primary day.

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