“I think this race really comes down to someone who’s willing to stand up and protect rights and our constitution, constitutional rights, reproductive rights,” McCaffery said in an interview outside his polling site.
“We all understand what happened at the federal level with the Dobbs decision. I think we all understand that could be coming soon to a state near you.”
Democrats turned this election
into a referendum on protecting reproductive rights after The Keystone
caught Carluccio removing anti-abortion language from her website in May. Planned Parenthood Voters, the reproductive rights group’s political arm, ran a seven-figure ad campaign highlighting the story in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh markets.
McCaffery was able to overcome the onslaught of money Pennsylvania’s richest billionaire, Jeffrey Yass,
spent supporting Carluccio. The Commonwealth Leaders Fund, which receives most of its funding from Yass, spent over $4 million supporting Carluccio through TV ads and political mailers.
McCaffery called Yass’ outsized influence on Pennsylvania politics “corrosive.”
“I think it’s really a corrupting influence. It’s corrosive,” he said.
“Judicial elections used to be kind of sleepy affairs. They used to be the kind of situations where you would talk about your credentials, you’d talk about your qualifications, make sure that you have a well earned history and an established reputation going to be fair and impartial,” McCaffery added. “That’s no longer the case. These have become partisan elections.”