Several Pa. cities won’t have a GOP candidate on Tuesday’s ballot. Some see it as a missed opportunity for Republicans after Trump’s win.

In the first statewide election in Pennsylvania since President Donald Trump’s November win, voters in several of the large and midsize cities where he expanded his party’s reach won’t see a Republican candidate on the ballot Tuesday.

The biggest race in the region — the contest for Philadelphia district attorney — has no candidates running in the GOP primary for the first time in decades. Mayoral elections in Allentown, Bethlehem, Lancaster, and Harrisburg, four of the 10 largest cities in the state, are also one-sided battles, with no Republican contenders.

On one hand, it may be unsurprising: These are Democratic-dominated cities, where Republicans make up a fraction of the registered voters and have not been victorious in decades. But they are also places where the Republican Party celebrated gains just six months ago.

A boost in GOP support in majority-Latino parts of Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley was particularly stark amid Democratic turnout declines, helping to usher in a red wave throughout the state.

Some Pennsylvania operatives said they see Republicans failing to field candidates as a missed opportunity to build on successes in the fall in major population hubs and battleground regions, while others argued that resources are best spent in more winnable places.

“We have to have more Republicans on the ballots,” said Philadelphia GOP chair Vince Fenerty. “Voters do sometimes get upset when there’s no Republicans on the ballot.”

Even if Republican candidates are unlikely to win, Fenerty said, it’s a way to maintain a presence and grow a pool of candidates who might go on to run for other offices.

The newly elected state GOP chair, State Sen. Greg Rothman, said the party is being strategic about where to put resources.

“Look, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, those are 20% Republican,” Rothman said. “We’re working on it and we’re making gains … we aspire to that, but I look at it as: How do we build the state globally?"

The lack of Republican competition in Pennsylvania’s Democratic cities reflects a national strategy for the party: thinking defensively about how to maintain its control of Congress in 2026, rather than expanding on November wins.

Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to use backlash against Trump’s policies to win back base voters who have drifted.

Fenerty said he tried “exceptionally hard” to recruit candidates to run for the seat held by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, speaking to roughly 20 attorneys and getting turned down by everyone.

“We got a lot of ‘best of luck,’ and ‘beat Larry,’ but no candidates,” he said.

Krasner‘s case is particularly frustrating to the Philly GOP given that the district attorney, a luminary of the national progressive prosecutor movement, has openly feuded with Trump and Republicans. With a 6-1 Democratic voter registration edge in Philly, a Republican beating the Democrat in November is a long shot. The last Republican to try, Chuck Peruto, lost in 2021 by nearly 40 points; asked afterward what he might have done differently, he said: “Not run.”

Still, other progressive prosecutors have been defeated in general elections nationally. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón lost to Nathan Hochman, who ran as an independent, in the fall. Kim Foxx opted not to run for reelection in Chicago and was replaced by a tough-on-crime Democrat in November.

Philadelphia Republicans are backing Krasner‘s Democratic challenger, former Municipal Court Judge Patrick Dugan, and city party leaders have called on Republicans to write him in to give him the possibility of running as a Republican in the fall. Dugan, who has positioned himself as a pragmatic alternative to Krasner, has said that even if he lost the Democratic primary but won a write-in campaign, he would not accept the GOP nomination.

Recruiting candidates in heavily Democratic areas is a challenge, and sacrificing a strong candidate on a losing race is not good politics, said one senior Republican Pennsylvania strategist whose current job does not allow him to talk on the record.

“I’m not gonna tell someone to run for Philly DA that I think is really smart and sharp, because it would be dishonest to them that they could win, and it could hurt their chances later,” he said.

Northampton County GOP chair Glenn Geissinger said it’s always tough to find candidates for mayoral contests in blue cities, particularly Bethlehem, which is split between Lehigh and Northampton Counties. The GOP has candidates running for Bethlehem City Council and for county executive, but not for mayor.

“It is a challenge to find candidates who are ready to run, who want to put in the time, who have the credentials, and who want to put forth the effort to overcome what in many places is a difficult task,” Geissinger said.

Geissinger said a major focus this year will be on Pennsylvania’s judicial races. “I say 2024 was about the White House and 2025 is about the courthouse,” he said.

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Rothman said the Republican Party “should focus on areas you can win.”

This year, the focus has been on two statewide judicial races, though Rothman also pointed to Republicans running for county executive positions in Erie, Northampton, and Lehigh as hopeful pickups.

“Republicans at the local level are much more interested still in school board races than an unwinnable race like Bethlehem mayor,” GOP consultant Chris Nicholas said. “And I’d much rather hope that Republicans in Lehigh and Northampton Counties vote on open county executive slots, which are more important and at least within the realm of winning.”

There are Republicans running in the Pittsburgh mayoral primary, and plenty of Democratic ballot lines are vacant in some exurban and rural local races.

Still, Philadelphia and other cities remain part of the GOP strategy, Rothman said, even absent a district attorney candidate. He thinks the party needs to be showing up more in the city and talking about immigration and the economy.

He pointed to Republican State Sen. Joe Picozzi’s successful run in the Northeast as an indication there is momentum to build on when the party fields candidates who mount aggressive campaigns. Fenerty said he is already talking to area Republicans about running for Philadelphia statehouse seats next year.

Across Pennsylvania, the GOP continues to best Democrats in new voter registration. As of mid-April, Democrats’ voting registration edge was 49,700 voters, a mega-drop from nearly 1 million 20 years ago. While registration is often a lagging indicator of how people vote, getting more party members means more voters who can support candidates in closed primaries, which Republicans view as a promising sign.

“We had the best election for Republicans in my lifetime, 120 days ago,” Rothman said. “So that’s what we’re trying to build on.”