Posts Tagged → election
Anatomy of a primary election
On May 20th, Pennsylvania held its primary election. Mostly local seats and judgeships were on the ballot, which are definitely important, but the real prizes were the PA Commonwealth Court and the PA Superior Court. As has come to be usual here and in many other states, the conservative/ independent-minded grass roots fielded their candidates and the state Republican Party fielded its candidates.
And as usual, the PA Republican Party was directly involved in the selection of the primary election candidates, their endorsements, their negative attacks, funding, etc. When a political party gets in between The People and their choice of candidate, the party always loses in the long run. When The People believe the party does not share their views or values, and is only pursuing the selection of certain candidates who will be malleable and loyal to the party, then The People lose faith in the party.
Here in PA there is real animosity between grass roots conservatives and the PA GOP establishment.
This election we had grass roots candidate Maria Battista vs. PAGOP candidate political establishment-endorsed Ann Marie Wheatcraft for Superior Court judge. Battista had run before as the GOP endorsed candidate, and had lost to the grass roots candidate. This time around, for whatever reason, she was on the outs with the PAGOP and on the in with the grass roots groups, like Lycoming Patriots. Wheatcraft had the PAGOP endorsement and money.
For the Commonwealth Court we had well known Second Amendment attorney Josh Prince vs. unknown state bureaucrat attorney Matt Wolford. Bureaucrat Wolford was mysteriously endorsed by the PAGOP, even though he has worked most of his career at the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, an agency that no matter which incarnation it embodies, and regardless of which political party is running it, nonetheless is associated with heavy-handed regulations and lawless bureaucrats who routinely beat up on private landowners and businesses. Not exactly a likely place to give birth to a solid Republican candidate for any office, much less a judgeship.
The long and short of these two races is that Battista the outsider defeated Wheatcraft the moneyed insider, and Wolford the party endorsed yet unknown bureaucrat and mystery “Republican” defeated grass roots favorite Prince. Moreover, Prince was endorsed by numerous organizations, like Gun Owners of America, Firearms Owners Against Crime, etc.
These are strange results.
Normally voters align with outsiders or insiders, but not with one candidate here and not that one over there. And yet that is what happened in this election. Normally, big endorsements gain big traction for candidates, but we saw no evidence of that in the Prince vs Wolford race. Despite his many big endorsements, Prince was utterly crushed even in very conservative rural counties, like Lycoming and Elk, where he was known, liked, and should have won handily. And yet, in these same counties, Battista blew off Wheatcraft’s doors.
Aside from a crooked vote tallying scheme, I have no explanation for this odd outcome that defies all odds and conventional thinking. Except for one possible variable that tends to get overlooked these days, and that is ballot position. That is, where does the candidate’s name fall on the ballot – top, middle, or last.
Studies have shown that ballot position does matter, or it can matter, but much less so when voters feel compelled to look up candidates on the internet. With its easy information access, the internet has been the great leveler of campaigns everywhere. Big campaign money cannot always defend a candidate’s bad record, which will be all over the internet, visible to the voters who but follow a few clicks on a search engine.
Battista had top and Prince had bottom on their respective ballots. Meaning that the 3/4-4/4 super voters who make up the primary election electorate, were unsure of who to vote for and simply and superficially chose the first name they saw for each position. That could explain the opposite results we got for both candidates, Battista and Prince.
As we see here, the voters have to want to know something about the people they are voting for in order to defeat the ballot position factor, as well as overcome often superficial campaign advertising. And so we learned a hard lesson here: The vaunted and lauded super voters did not necessarily do super research into the candidates. They apparently did not bother to look up the candidates before walking into the voting booth. They simply saw a name at the top and made their choice.
And that is the gory anatomy of Pennsylvania’s 2025 primary election, God help us all.

Does ballot position really determine who a lot of primary election super voters choose? From this election, it would seem so.

Elk County is a very conservative rural place where DEP bureaucrats are hated like poison ivy. The 2025 results there make no sense, unless ballot position is the primary factor.

Doesn’t it seem mean spirited to not even mention candidate Josh Prince? Doesn’t it further alienate his supporters? What is that all about?

I have never seen election results like this. If conservative rural Lycoming County super voters feel so strongly about conservative candidate Battista, they for sure would have felt just as strongly about conservative candidate Prince. And yet…the results seem to prove that ballot position is the most important determinant
Upcoming Primary Election recommendations
Pennsylvania’s primary election (Democrat vs. Democrat, Republican vs. Republican, and sadly, no one else vs. anyone else i.e. fewer choices for voters) is coming up in a few weeks. On May 20th, Pennsylvania voters should all be going to vote for candidates they believe will best represent their interests in our self-run government.
Through voting, We, The People, select our fellow citizens to represent us, to be a voice for us, to make sound choices for us, in the giant government blob. Why more Pennsylvanians do not vote, why so many fail to vote, eludes me. Nothing is more important than casting your vote, and yet, historically, few people vote overall, and especially in primaries. Voting is not difficult. It does not take money, or good looks, or nice clothes, or a lot of time, or a fancy car. You, the voter, simply have to make it a 15-30 minute priority on one day in the Spring, and then again one day in the Fall. You go to your voting precinct and vote for those candidates who best represent your views, religion, ideology, whatever. Many elections are really close, and every vote counts. Your vote counts, so do it.
In the state-wide Republican primary races, Ann Marie Wheatcraft is the superior candidate for Judge of the Superior Court. Judge Wheatcraft is hard on criminals and supportive of crime victims, which is how good judges should be and how they used to act. Now, it seems popular for judges to themselves break the law and to also throw Americans aside in favor of hardened criminals. As if the hardened criminals are somehow victims who need the judge’s protection. That appears to be the upside down mindest of Maria Battista, Wheatcraft’s opponent. No thanks. America has had quite enough of this nonsense.
Vote for Ann Marie Wheatcraft for Superior Court.
Joshua Prince is the by far and away best possible candidate for Judge of the Commonwealth Court. Josh has distinguished himself for decades as a court room force for good and for sticking up for the little guy against government over-reach. I know from personal experience, as Josh Prince has represented me personally, and a group I am a member of (FOAC), in a Harrisburg 2A lawsuit we simply had to bring (and which we won). Josh’s demeanor in the court room is impressive, steady, clear, and really organized. I have seen him run rings around attorneys touted as the best of their kind.
I have nothing personal against candidate Matt Wolford, but like so many grass roots voters, I am frustrated by the behind-closed-doors process that got Matt Wolford into his candidacy. Matt Wolford is a product of the Republican Establishment, which across America, and especially in Pennsylvania, is one of the biggest failures of any sort of organization. This is a cookie cutter group that time and time again loses easy races and then says “Aww shucks, we’ll get ’em next time,” even though there is no next time. With the Democrat Party aggressively gerrymandering the voting map, and engaging in motor-voter registration of illegal aliens and last minute changes to voting laws, honest elections look like a thing of the distant imagination. So campaigns must be hard-fought, which is not the PAGOP’s forte.
Of all the GOP groups across America, the PAGOP is especially mostly run by election consultants, who get paid well, whether they win or lose. Pennsylvania GOP politics is all about getting political management and consulting contracts, which has yielded a bitchy and mean-spirited entitlement attitude among the consultant class. They like candidates who will bend the knee and give them consulting contracts when they win. They do not care about policy or philosophy of government; every vote to them is a question of horse trading for money.
While I am on this bitchfest, let us point out that Dauphin County was one of the few PA counties to LOSE Republican voters in 2024. While the rest of PA was moving right with increased Republican voter registrations and votes, Dauphin County regressed. And Dauphin County has been regressing for years. It is probably due to the fact that the Dauphin County GOP chairman spends all of his time on…. high paying political consulting contracts, instead of focusing on winning elections.
To me, politics should not be about making money. But then, I never won any of my election races, which were run strictly on policy. Perhaps if more people like me and Josh Prince did get elected, America would be in better shape.
Anyhow, Matt Wolford comes out of this failed insular, unprincipled, and artificial process, which always seems to yield the most tepid, boring, unimpressive candidates who then go on to lose to aggressive Democrats. Let’s not do that again.
Vote for Josh Prince for Judge of the Commonwealth Court.
Here in the county court system, we have the Court of Common Pleas, where the most basic cases are heard. This is where you, the voter, want a most stable and normal person sitting up there on the bench, judging you. Two great candidates for this role deserve your vote: Fran Chardo and Jim Zugay.
Fran is the current District Attorney of Dauphin County. A more stand-up, normal, clean hands guy you will not find in American politics, anywhere. Fran is even keeled, does everything by the book, is a great listener, and will be exactly the kind of fair-minded judge you want looking back at you when you get carted into court for making some first-time-ever stupid decision that you regretted the moment you did it. Good guy.
Vote for Fran Chardo for Court of Common Pleas.
The other candidate for the Court of Common Pleas who deserves your vote is Jim Zugay, a long-time Dauphin County steadfast functionary and do-er git-er-done kind of guy. Jim has been (I think) Dauphin County Recorder of Deeds, among several other important county roles. And let me tell you straight up: Jim Zugay does not like me, because I am a pain in the butt. Jim is a serious, level headed, by-the-books guy, and he does not like bitchfesty people like me asking annoying questions that are not about getting the job done right now. I admire Jim for that, even though he grimaces when we encounter one another at social events.
Vote for Jim Zugay for Court of Common Pleas.
No, please do not vote for Katy Kennedy-McShane for this judge role. Yes, Katy and her husband are boxers, which is cool, and yes, they work with disadvantaged minority kids, which is very very cool and meritorious. But Katy’s ideological/ philosophical perspective on legal outcomes is not Constitutionalist. Rather, Katy will be a judicial activist, trying to make herself into judge, jury and executioner, or rather judge, legislator, and chief executive, all in one. This failed approach to judicial review has created so many problems by now that America is having a tough time sorting them out. Our constitutional rights cannot withstand this ongoing leftwing assault.
America and Dauphin County need judges who rely on precedent and the Constitution to make narrowly applied decisions. That’s Chardo and Zugay. America cannot take another activist judge, and Katy Kennedy-McShane will be an activist judge. No, no, no.
Finally, Graham Hetrick is the handsomest, most debonair coroner in American history. Few men who carry a gun and badge are better looking or better dressed or nicer or smarter than Graham. For some reason, a lot of coroners are colorful characters, and Graham is the most colorful of them all, while also maintaining stellar standards. The guy had his own national TV show, and smitten lady friends from lives past in distant states would call me out of the blue to ask “Do you know Graham Hetrick? OMIGOD can you get me his autograph, Josh, dear?”
Graham probably has this same electrifying effect on the dead, too, as well as justice for the dead. Vote for him. Dauphin County needs his steady hand in crime solving.
Vote: NRA Board of Directors
The National Rifle Association board of directors election is happening right now, and your vote counts a lot. And a lot is at stake. The organization is recovering from decades of bureaucratic malaise and overspending, personal ego battles among leaders, and frankly, the overstayed-your-welcome of its longtime Executive VP, Wayne LaPierre. The more people asked Wayne LaPierre to step down, the more he clung to power, hogged public attention, and damaged the careers and lives of those NRA staff and associates whom he perceived to be less than groveling to him.
The NRA has had some rough times, no doubt, and other worthy groups like Gun Owners of America have seized the opportunity to grow their market share of the 2A crowd. But it is still a fact that the NRA is the best sheriff in town to take on the anti-freedom tyrants. Though NRA has had some internal drama (and so has GOA), no one does its job better. NRA still deserves your membership, your support, your donation when purchasing things at Midway.
Yes, Donald Trump is now president, and so no, the federal government is not presently at war with our 2A rights and the groups that protect them, like the NRA. But presidents come and go, and our advocates like NRA must be able to stay in the fight, during the good times and the bad.
Presently there is an internal contest going on at NRA, at the board level and amongst some of the staff, about Whither NRA. There is an effort to keep the “old regime” folks around, when what is needed is a complete overhaul, a housecleaning, an NRA 2.0. For that to happen, new voices and fresh faces have to be voted onto the board. I happen to know a few of the board members (spanning all positions on Whither NRA), and I have been asking them what their opinions are about some of the new faces and some of the old faces.
Couple of recommended NO votes: Larry “Bathroom Bud” Craig (for God’s sake, NRA, have you no shame?), Sandra Froman (been a board member for long enough now, thank you), Joel Friedman, a fantastic 2A stalwart who tied himself too closely to Wayne LaPierre and the old NRA establishment.
Recommended YES votes:
- Knox Williams of the American Suppressor Association. I do not own suppressors, nor am I interested in suppressors. My gun interests are in the circa 1775-1925 range. However, a lot of new gun owners are very into suppressors and the modern sporting rifles they connect to. Young people like Knox Williams speak this new language and are necessary for the NRA to walk effectively into the 21st century.
- Jonathan Goldstein, a well known Second Amendment attorney from here in Pennsylvania.
- Al Hammond, Mitzy McCorvey, Anthony Colandro, Charles Hiltunen, Isaac Demarest, Todd Ellis, and Jim Wallace are all fresh voices much needed on the NRA board.
Your official NRA ballot is due before April 6th, 2025, so get it in the mail, pronto.
Josh Prince for Judge

Attorney Josh Prince with his posse of pro 2A clients and fellow attorneys in Harrisburg County court house last August, following a successful day in court.
Josh Prince is a candidate for Commonwealth Court, and I really hope he wins. Josh is probably one of the best candidates, one of the best people, to ever run for this elected position.
He is one of the most pro Second Amendment judicial candidates Pennsylvania has ever had. If you are a hunter, a target shooter, a self defense gun owner, Josh is your candidate. Josh has been protecting Pennsylvania gun owners for decades, with dozens of successful lawsuits against government overreach to his credit. Often done on credit, without demanding that his wrongfully/ illegally accused clients pay exorbitant retainers up front and huge fees. I am not saying Josh takes chickens (or eggs these days) in payment, like country lawyers used to do, but it would not surprise me if he does.
I have personally known Josh for twenty years, and I have been a FOAC client of his here in Harrisburg, where we defeated Harrisburg City’s unconstitutional anti 2A city ordinances last Fall.
Josh Prince is endorsed by Gun Owners of America, FOAC, and probably NRA, any one of which should be sufficient for him to get your vote on May 20th, which is PA Primary Election Day.
Please vote for Josh Prince for Commonwealth Court on May 20th, thank you.
Hurricane Trump spawns endless Zeitgeist
Back in the 1980s, which for you young people is when the world began, a confused and confusing publication called The New Republic entered a new-ish word into the American journalistic lexicon: Zeitgeist.
Meaning more or less “the spirit of the age,” this word Zeitgeist has been used among writers and journalists as a way to introduce certain specific government policies or political statements or ideologies for discussion. Or as The New Republic mostly Marxist writers used it, as a foil to hold up for examination certain political motifs they thought wrong. In their case back then, TNR writers were mostly reacting to Republican president Ronald Reagan, who was then aggressively rebutting many of the government policy failures he was elected to end.
Well, President Trump’s first week in office has unleashed so many policies and government actions that America is fully back into the time of Zeitgeist. Trump is waaaay ahead of where Reagan began. By 2024, clearly the American people had had their fill of destructive DEI/ CRT/ ESG nonsense, they voted for a huge and hard break with it all, and we are now witnessing a veritable Hurricane Trump descend upon both Beltway Bandit and Ivory Tower Academic alike, as well as murderous gang members whom the Mainstream Media naturally depict as pet Democrat sad puppies.
Where do we even begin to mark down the wonderful new things among the slowly but inexorably unfolding wreckage?
- California Man Childs: California voters could not adult, they elected man-children as officials, lived a life of unsustainable fantasy, and burned down their most valuable real estate as a result. The wildfires were inevitable. Empty fire hydrants, empty city reservoirs, DEI fire departments filled with overpaid fat slobs chosen because of their female anatomy or feminine appearance, instead of their actual abilities to fight fires and save people or keep fire engines running, the list of policy failures is as long as my arm. The man childs have been busy blaming “climate change ate my homework” and even Trump for their own policy failures, and thus far it appears the California voters are sticking with them. Some human beings are just not programmed to evolve or even to save themselves. Stay tuned for more self inflicted disasters and even more self inflicted voting patterns in California, as Trump demands adult policy changes before taxpayer funding the return to leftist self destruction. Relatedly, an entire federal agency, FEMA, is now under the gun, as a result of multiple failures in North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and now California. FEMA is kind of the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the alphabet agencies popularly hated by the American people (ATF, EPA, FBI etc).
- DEI (“didn’t earn it”): Supposedly, according to DEI ideology, the way to end discrimination against people because of their skin color or gender is by aggressively discriminating against people based on their skin color and gender. DEI does not make sense when you read it this way, which is the accurate way, and the American voters have had more than their fill of it. DEI is DOA in the Trump executive branch, and so the bloated administrative state blood is beginning to leak out wherever DEI stood. Cutesy cat-and-mouse games where DEI staff are re-named something innocuous sounding are being met with beautifully placed sledgehammer responses. The reality of DEI rot damage to our national fabric is becoming apparent, and the American people are vindicated.
- January 6th: Acccording to the Democrat Party’s Mainstream Media, January 6th was the first ever unarmed “insurrection” in human history, and was worse than the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor and worse than the American Civil War (!). This perspective justified the Biden DOJ’s subsequent Gestapo response against their political enemies. I was there in front of the US Capitol on January 6th, and I witnessed the reality: Uniformed police rained down a storm of illegal ultra-violence and abnormal sadistic abuse on peaceful protestors, eventually provoking a just and normal response by a free people. Antifa hoodlums (who I saw with my own eyes) and federal employees led the way in property destruction and violence against uniformed police. With the Biden DOJ Gestapo gone, personal J6 videos are now coming out of hiding. These videos show exactly what the MSM did not show you: A peaceful protest bombed, beaten, blasted into responding to the lawless police, and now a crumbling MSM political narrative just as fake and unsustainable as Los Angeles fire supression and prevention policies.
- Illegal Invaders: Yes, starting in 2021 the Democrat Party opened up the American borders and just let anyone who wanted come into America, and even paid them to do it. This was done to get enough new voters and enough US Census population count bodies to help the Democrat Party create a stranglehold on America. A one-party country, which everywhere else in the world is an autocratic non-free miserable place, was their goal. Meanwhile, across America public schools and hospitals and public parks are awash in these non-English speaking criminals, subjecting taxpayers to an incredible and unsustainable cost burden. Yes, the Democrat Party wants to burn down America to get control of America, but it appears that the Trump Administration will be deporting a thousand invaders a day, at least. Whether America has dodged this particular bullet or not remains to be seen. If strong election integrity laws can be implemented that protect American elections and voters from the illegal invaders, then all will be well in the end.
As some of these individual policy happenings show us, a true Zeitgeist is emerging: A Spirit of ’76, a recapturing of the federal bureaucracy by those American citizens who pay for it and underwrite it, a re-purposing of the federal government away from funding the world and instead funding our own American citizens in need.
Hurricane Trump has only just hit the coast, it has barely started to move inland, and so-so-so many much needed changes are already well under way. Things are looking beautiful.
MAGA has another four years of hard work ahead
With his Make America Great Again movement triumphant, President Trump may have crushingly won last week’s national election, both in the Electoral College and in the national majority vote, but he will nonetheless hold but one branch of government of three. Yes, a strong chief executive can strongly influence the other two branches, and yes, second term President Trump is likely to be one of the strongest Presidents America will have seen in a long long time. But, the President still needs the other two branches, especially the bicameral legislature, in order to implement his agenda.
With today’s DC Swamp vote for RINO Senator John Thune as the new US Senate leader, instead of Trump-endorsed freedom champion Senator Rick Scott, it has become obvious that the non-MAGA DC Swamp critter RINOs are already preparing to resist Trump and his clear political mandate of, by, and for We The People.
And so while MAGA was successful in getting Trump re-elected a third time, it now appears that the movement has a new mission: Mobilize en masse against any and all RINOs who block, hinder, vote against, or undermine President Trump’s policy agenda. This means that MAGA members/supporters/activists will be traveling to adjoining states and traveling around our own state to bring street-level people power to strong grass roots candidates primarying GOPe RINOs, as well as crowd funding these upstart candidates.
Only by removing the careerist RINOs in hard-fought primaries can we chip away at the DC Swamp and help Trump implement his America-saving freedom agenda.
First up for primary challenge would be those US senators who voted for Thune or fellow RINO Senator John Cornyn to be Senate Majority Leader. That would be anyone not in the following list of names. Hero Senators who voted for Senator Scott and for freedom were:
Marsha Blackburn
Ted Cruz
Bill Hagerty
Ron Johnson
Mike Lee
Cynthia Lummis
Rand Paul
Marco Rubio
Eric Schmitt
Rick Scott
Cindy Hyde-Smith
Tommy Tuberville
JD Vance
Which means every other Republican US senator is a primary target. Fellow MAGAs, it is time to start drumming up strong candidates to bring primary challenges to every US senator not on the list above.
MAGA are you ready for the next mission to reclaim America for We The People? I am!