DOYLESTOWN, PA – The audience lined up and waited meeting of the Bucks County Election Commission earlier this week was angry. The only thing missing were the pitchforks.

The bull bath was caused when one of the commissioners, Diane Ellis-Marsegliaannounced the week before that the state Supreme Court ruling doesn’t really matter, and she would anyway count illegal ballots in the Keystone State’s U.S. Senate race.

DAVID MARCUS: PENNSYLVANIA VOTERS TOO LATE. CASEY: ‘IT’S OVER, BOB’

On Wednesday, she sort of apologized to the frothing crowd that demanded her resignation, then on Thursday Democratic Late. Bob Casey admitted his loss to challenger Dave McCormick. By all means the controversy was over, but why had it happened in the first place?

“This is about 2026,” Nick told me outside the Cabinet Office.

In his late 20s or early 30s, Nick is one of those conservative Gen Z men that you keep hearing so much about, slicked back hair, sunglasses just plain. “Casey’s not going to be a senator, but they want these ballots to count next time,” he said.

A crowd gathers before a Bucks County Election Commission meeting in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. (David Marcus/Fox News Digital)

All of this speaks to a legitimate fear among Democrats that Pennsylvania, long the swingiest of the swing states, could move, like Ohio and Florida before it, strongly into the Republican column.

While the race between McCormick and Casey was close enough to merit a recount, the race at the top of the ticket between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was not. It wasn’t a blowout, but like the national tally, with roughly a two-point lead, Trump’s win was decisive.

Even in Philadelphia, the bluest corner of the commonwealth, Trump improved his 2020 polls while turnout lagged behind Harris and the Democrats. It’s a loud warning for what used to be the party of Jefferson and Jackson.

Swing states don’t tend to stay swing states forever. Oregon, for example, which is now so far behind that Chairman Mao would say “tone it down a bit,” was a toss-up 30 years ago, but times and parties change.

Bob Casey and Dave McCormick are tied in Pennsylvania, according to a new poll. (AP/Reuters)

So far, Pennsylvania still has a Democratic senator in John Fetterman, who at times seems to be charting his own centrist course against left-wing headwinds from his national party, and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who also seems wary of odious progressivism.

But if Democrats nationally fail to see what Fetterman and Shapiro see, that unchecked vigilantism and far-left politics are rejected outright by voters, then even they won’t be able to keep Pennsylvania purple.

“If it weren’t for double standards, the Democrats would have no standards at all,” shouted a man holding a Trump sign outside the election commissioner’s meeting Wednesday, and his point was easy to understand.

For four years, we heard little about Trump other than his election denial, and we were told that it was a grave and serious threat to the country. Yet here was an elected Democratic official vowing to break the law and count illegal ballots, just to put one of her own into office.

Pennsylvania Democrats face a dangerous crossroads as they look ahead. Fetterman and Shapiro may continue to at least gesture toward a more centrist approach, but if the national party continues its lurch to the far left, it may not matter much.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONS

If in four years the Democrats again nominate a far-left San Francisco liberal like Gavin Newsom, there is every reason to believe that Pennsylvanians will continue their march to the right.

These were always Joe Biden and Ed Rendell Democrats, they were never Nancy Pelosi Democrats.

For Republicans, the lesson from Pennsylvania couldn’t be simpler. Just stay the course, simply embody what President-elect Trump rightly refers to as common sense.

If Republicans can reliably turn Pennsylvania red, it will be a shift in national politics, the kind that fundamentally changes what our political parties stand for and stand for.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

That’s really why Casey was tilting at the impossible windmill in a recount. It’s not about him, it’s not about now, it’s about next time. It’s about keeping that wiggle room in the vote count that so often pushes the Democrats over the finish line.

But this time, the people noticed, this time they came out to protest, and next time they may be ready to hand the Republicans the key to generational power.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS