HARRISBURG — During Pennsylvania’s primary this May, Democratic and Republican voters will be asked to weigh in on critical elections for Congress and the General Assembly.
All congressional districts are on the ballot. So are all 203 districts in the state House, and half of the 50 state Senate seats — those in even-numbered districts.
There won’t be much excitement at the top of the ballot just yet. Democratic incumbent Josh Shapiro is running unopposed for his party’s nomination for governor. So is Republican Stacy Garrity, who is currently the state’s treasurer.
Pennsylvania has a divided government with a Democratic governor, a Republican-controlled state Senate, and a Democratic majority in the state House. This year’s election will determine who gets to set policy in the Keystone State.
Unaffiliated and third-party voters are not able to participate in partisan primary elections. They can, however, vote in special elections that coincide with the primary and on ballot questions.
Spotlight PA’s nonpartisan election coverage will focus on connecting the stakes of select races to the lives of Pennsylvanians, and monitoring and explaining the systems that underpin Pennsylvania elections and their administration.
We will provide essential election information on the candidates in key statewide races, share how to participate in the electoral process, and explain how election systems are supposed to work. All of this coverage can be found on the Spotlight PA Election Center website.
We will create interactive tools and resources to help voters track the money bankrolling campaigns, and to choose the candidates who best reflect their needs and values. We will continue to publish our election content in Spanish. We aim to reach, educate, and empower voters in new ways.
This voter-centric approach builds upon the years of election reporting at the core of our public-service mission. Regardless of political affiliation, trusted and nonpartisan election reporting is the bedrock of an informed electorate and an informed vote.
As always, all of Spotlight PA’s public-service election coverage will be free and available to all on spotlightpa.org and through the more than 125 community newsroom partners across the state that republish our work.
The races we will cover and why
Candidates for governor, Congress, and the state legislature will be on the ballot this May. We’ll cover each one a little differently based on our resources and what we expect other media coverage to capture.
Governor
The governor’s race is central to our mission to report on Pennsylvania’s government. The governor wields significant power, approving or vetoing legislation, managing a massive state employee workforce, and overseeing state agencies that spend billions of taxpayer dollars.
Our team of dedicated reporters will dig into the candidates’ records, their policy stances, examine who is spending money on these races and why, and explain the important role a governor plays in the lives of everyday Pennsylvanians.
State House and Senate
There will be a whopping 223 state legislative races on the ballot this year, making it impossible for us to provide in-depth coverage of every race. Instead, we’ll focus on the most contested legislative races and those that carry statewide importance. We’ll also publish a guide to vetting these candidates so you can make an informed decision.
Congress
Previously, Spotlight PA has only covered congressional races in a limited way. But that changes this year. Through new partnerships with the Associated Press and NOTUS, readers will receive regular reporting on these candidates and the state of the races, at times produced in conjunction with our team.
How we will cover candidates
As we’ve done in previous years, Spotlight PA will provide in-depth information about gubernatorial candidates, their policy positions, and what those policies would mean for Pennsylvania. These reports will be informed by our newsroom talking with elected officials, candidates, campaign staffers, and you.
What we will not do: regularly publish “horse race” coverage — stories that focus on campaign stops, the latest attacks, or who is winning or losing in the polls. Other news outlets will provide that coverage, and we don’t see a need to duplicate it. If you’d like to follow the granular developments on the campaign trail, sign up for Spotlight PA’s daily newsletter, PA Post.
Horse race coverage has also been shown to exacerbate the extreme partisanship we see today. Research compiled by the Journalist’s Resource, a project of Harvard and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, shows that these stories can lead to distrust in news outlets and politicians, as well as create an “uninformed electorate.”
Additionally, Spotlight PA does not publish any editorial or opinion content, nor does it take a position on any particular political party or policy. The newsroom also does not endorse candidates.
How we will cover voting, the electoral system, and misinformation
Our effort to empower voters has three planks: to provide reliable information about where candidates stand on the issues; to explain how elections in Pennsylvania are run; and to educate voters on how to protect themselves against misinformation.
We call this a voter-centric approach.
We will produce voter guides for the primary election that provide critical information about deadlines, where to vote, how to vote, and how to get involved in the process. All of this coverage will be available as part of the Spotlight PA Election Center website, and some of it will also be available in Spanish.
Spotlight PA will also publish a series of stories on independent and third-party voters, and the push to allow them to participate in partisan primary elections. The number of people who aren’t registered as Democrats and Republicans continues to rise, and Spotlight PA will examine the arguments for and against open primaries.
Building from our coverage on Pennsylvania's electoral system, we will continue to report on election lawsuits in real time and use our statewide contacts on the ground to bring the latest updates to voters.
After the 2020 presidential election and in the years since, Pennsylvania’s voting process — in particular, its mail voting law — has come under intense scrutiny and attack by Republicans, some of whom have advanced false or misleading claims put forth by President Donald Trump. Our coverage will help readers parse the noise from the facts.
This approach, called “prebunking,” is an alternative to traditional fact-checking by news organizations. Instead of chasing down every false claim, we educate and empower voters to better recognize these efforts and guard against them. In doing so, we monitor for areas of voter confusion and explain how processes and government work. Confusion is often the precursor to mis- and disinformation taking hold.
We aim to support readers in their search for facts.
If you are concerned about confusing or false information being disseminated about this election or the voting process, please contact us using the form below. Your observations on the ground may help shape our reporting on the election.
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How we will cover election results
News organizations have traditionally collected voting results in hopes of reporting on a winner or projected winner in a race on the night of the election. For many reasons, this approach is no longer viable in Pennsylvania during some high-turnout elections, and can contribute to confusion and mistrust.
By state law, Pennsylvania counties cannot process mail ballots before Election Day, and many have different procedures for counting votes and in what order.
For those reasons and more, we will not publish results stories until the vast majority or all of the ballots are tabulated, and then report on the projected winner. What matters to us is being right, not first.
For voters interested in seeing rolling tallies, Spotlight PA will publish and make available for free a tool that displays Associated Press results. Learn more about how the AP calls races here.
How we connect our coverage to voters
In 2026, Spotlight PA will continue past efforts and launch a set of new projects designed to engage voters — especially younger ones who primarily get their information from social media — and connect them with crucial election information.
Spanish-language resources and outreach
Spotlight PA will continue to offer some of our election content, voter resources, and guides in Spanish to reach the growing Latino voting bloc that resides in the state. Part of this endeavor includes growing our Spanish-language partners across the state to distribute this content to, as well as partnering with community organizations to host in-person and virtual events.
Interactive tools
Spotlight PA will publish interactive tools to help voters better understand the races on their ballot. That includes a new tool that visualizes campaign finance data from the gubernatorial candidates, making it easy to understand who is funding them.
Spotlight PA is also regularly updating a tool that tracks and visualizes voter registration changes across the state.
In the coming months, look out for quizzes focused on the governor’s race, modeled after our popular row office quiz.
Social videos
During the past several election cycles, Spotlight PA has produced social media videos focused on important election information. Our team has produced explainers on Pennsylvania’s closed primary system and how to vote by mail, as well as detailed candidate guides and more.
For the May primary election, we will greatly expand our presence on social media, with the help of a grant from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. A dedicated reporter, Kate Huangpu, will translate our important election stories, explainers, and guides into a video format.
Follow our accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to see our work as it is published.
How you can help guide our coverage
Spotlight PA’s coverage aims to put voters first.
Elizabeth Estrada, Pennsylvania's first and only democracy editor, leads our Democracy Initiative. Estrada’s mission is to identify the information voters need to make an informed decision and make sure it reaches them.
She will ensure Spotlight PA’s Election Center is a one-stop resource for all voter and candidate guides, watchdog coverage, and public-service tools and explainers.
If you have ideas for the Democracy Initiative and how Spotlight PA can better serve you this election, contact Estrada at eestrada@spotlightpa.org.
Spotlight PA also wants to hear your questions about the races. We won’t be able to answer all of them, but our team of reporters will get to as many as possible. Send a message using the form below (if you can’t see the form, click here):
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Where you can find our coverage
All of Spotlight PA’s election coverage will be available on our site and through more than 125 newsroom partners across the state. All election-related content, from stories to voter guides and interactive tools, will also be available in our Election Center.
If you subscribe to one of our newsletters, you’ll also get periodic Voter Alerts letting you know about our latest coverage, key developments, and important upcoming dates. Sign up at spotlightpa.org/newsletters.
BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.