Pennsylvania Democrats have won the trifecta for the first time in more than 30 years, and Gov. Josh Shapiro is wasting no time signaling what comes next.
Democrats will control the governorship and both chambers of the General Assembly come January. The state House flipped by a wide margin, 111-92, according to PJ Media. The Senate will be tighter — Democrats hold a one-seat majority, 26-24, when the new session begins in 2027. That single-seat margin is the only structural check standing between Pennsylvania gun owners and the agenda state Democrats have been promising.
The day after Election Day, Shapiro rattled off a list of priorities, PJ Media reported: "We will fund mass transit. We will raise the minimum wage. We will make sure that women have a right to reproductive freedom here in this commonwealth. We will build more housing. We will allow survivors of abuse the ability to confront their abusers in court."
Notably absent from that short list was gun control — but state Democrats have been explicit that it is on deck. State Democratic lawmakers told The Trace in October that if they achieved a trifecta, they would pursue gun reform measures Republicans have long blocked. Those include bills to ban homemade, untraceable "ghost guns"; expand background checks to more types of gun purchases; create a red flag law to temporarily take guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others; and outlaw conversion devices, also known as switches, that enable handguns to fire up to 1,200 rounds per minute, according to The Trace.
The political timing is not accidental. Shapiro is widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender, and PJ Media noted that everything he does from here will be read as a trial run for a national campaign. Gun control has become a signature issue for the Democratic base, and Pennsylvania's new legislative map gives him a window to deliver on it.
The Senate math is the story to watch. With a 26-24 majority, a single Democratic defection on any gun bill would kill it — assuming Republicans stay united. Whether that happens is an open question. Some Pennsylvania Democrats represent swing districts where Second Amendment support runs deep, and a red flag law or an assault-style weapons ban could put them in a difficult spot back home. It is not yet known which specific bills Democratic leaders will bring to the floor first, or whether Shapiro will attach any of them to must-pass budget legislation.
For Pennsylvania gun owners, the practical effect is a compressed timeline. The new session convenes in January 2027. Any bill that reaches Shapiro's desk will be signed — he has not hidden his support for the measures Democrats outlined to The Trace. The question is whether the Senate's one-seat margin holds.
Republicans in Harrisburg have not yet announced a strategy for the session. A request for comment to the state Senate Republican caucus was not returned by publication time.
Our Take
Let's be clear about what just happened. Pennsylvania voters handed Democrats total control of state government for the first time since the early 1990s, and the party's loudest activists have spent years telling anyone who would listen that this is exactly what they wanted — not for transit funding or housing subsidies, but to come after the firearms of law-abiding Pennsylvanians.
Shapiro's post-election victory lap mentioned mass transit and the minimum wage. It did not mention the ghost gun ban, the red flag law, or the switch ban. That is not an oversight. It is a strategy. The governor knows that the Second Amendment is not a winning issue for him in Erie, in Fayette County, in the rural stretches of the state where Democrats used to win. So he will let the activists and the out-of-state money set the table, sign what reaches his desk, and preserve plausible deniability for a 2028 run.
Here is the number that matters: 26-24. One seat. That is the entirety of the firewall between Pennsylvania and the kind of gun control regime that has turned states like New York and California into permitting nightmares for lawful gun owners. Every gun owner in this state should know the name of their state senator and know exactly where that senator stands on red flag laws. Because the people who wrote these bills are not interested in compromise. They are interested in a checklist, and they are one vote away from having the votes to start checking boxes.
Patriots, the fight is not in Washington this time. It is in Harrisburg, it starts in January, and it starts with one seat.
