Republicans flipped a Senate seat from Northeast Philadelphia on Thursday, sending 29-year-old Joe Picozzi to Harrisburg as the first GOP senator to represent Philly in more than two decades.

Democrats in Philadelphia are reeling from the loss in the Northeast — where Republicans saw a strong Republican Party turnout for the deep blue city and where Republicans also nearly flipped a state House seat — and several operatives said privately that the city and state parties did not appreciate the threat. posed until he had already gained traction in the neighborhood.

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Picozzi will unseat incumbent Sen. Jimmy Dillon, a former Notre Dame University point guard who runs basketball academies in the city. Dillon was first elected in 2022 in a special election to serve the remainder of John Sabatina Jr.’s term. to fulfill after he was elected judge.

The Associated Press called the race for Picozzi on Thursday before the number of outstanding provisional ballots in the district was released by the city. Dillon did not concede, and a spokesperson for Dillon said Thursday afternoon that without those numbers, a race call is premature and that the campaign will wait until all votes are counted.

Senate Republican leaders put the 5th Senatorial District on their wish list last year after seeing the 2023 mayoral results in Northeast Philadelphia, said Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland). She also saw it as a district that Democrats had taken for granted. Moreover, Picozzi, who returned to his native Northeast after years in Washington DC, was a “bundle of energy” who convinced Ward to invest in the seat.

“I just knew when I looked at (the district): We can do it. It’s not easy, it’s still 58% registered Democrat, but we can do this,” Ward added. “If you get a candidate like that, you can do those things. I’ve never seen such a candidate. He is a machine.”

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Internal polling in the district showed Republicans could turn it around, so Ward and the Senate Republican Campaign Committee continued to invest resources to support Picozzi’s candidacy, she said.

Picozzi won without the support of the city’s Republican Party, but he had the support of the SRCC, which poured more than $750,000 into the race, campaign finance reports show.

“There were so many people walking out on Tuesday saying, ‘I voted for you, do us right,’” Picozzi said. “We have been so let down by politicians, but I really intend to make it happen.”

Picozzi’s team knocked on 70,000 doors in Northeast Philly. Picozzi said he personally worked on his campaign full-time, seven days a week.

It was a surprising end to Dillon’s time in the Senate — something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Dillon’s older brother, Shawn Dillon, was initially the Democratic nominee to replace Sabatina in 2022. But a paperwork error ruined Shawn Dillon’s candidacy, so Northeast Democrats brought in Jimmy Dillon to run for the seat.

During his two years as president, Jimmy Dillon came under scrutiny regarding his spending reports and campaign filings. He also came under fire for racist and homophobic tweets on his business basketball account, which he denied posting and said others had access to the account.

Democratic underestimation and another close race in Northeast Philly

Still, one elected Democrat, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the dynamics, called Dillon’s loss “the most embarrassing part” of Tuesday’s election results and said state and city party officials were not taking the race seriously enough.

Senate Democrats and their top leaders didn’t start spending seriously on the race until October, with the lion’s share of the $254,000 total spending only coming in recent weeks.

“That’s our man,” the official said. ‘How did you lose that? Why didn’t anyone raise the alarm?”

Democrats knew Republicans were targeting seats in the Northeast, where two elected Republicans already represent them in the state House and City Council. Republicans also invested in the 172nd House District race against Democrat Sean Dougherty, the nephew of former union leader John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty and son of Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty.

Sean Dougherty won his race by just a few hundred votes, a slim margin in the once reliably blue district, with the Associated Press calling the race in his favor Thursday. His GOP opponent, Aizaz Gill, had conceded a day earlier.

Reached Thursday, Sean Dougherty said he’s “ready to get to work for my neighbors” after a whirlwind nine-month campaign. In a high-octane primary last spring, Dougherty, 30, defeated incumbent Rep. Kevin Boyle (D., Philadelphia), who had a wrongful arrest warrant issued during the campaign.

Top Democrats chose Dillon in the Northeast later in the campaign. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker traveled to the district twice to campaign with him, and unions mobilized resources to knock on doors on his behalf. Gov. Josh Shapiro also campaigned for him the weekend before Election Day.

City Councilman Isaiah Thomas, who led programs for Black voters in the run-up to the election, started his day Tuesday in Northeast Philadelphia to campaign for Dillon and Dougherty. When asked whether the party is concerned about retaining those seats, Thomas replied: “Isaiah Thomas is. They are very important.”

Senator Sharif Street, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democrats, said on Election Day that he was confident Dillon would be re-elected.

“He has worked hard to make the effort and knock on doors,” Street said, “and he will hold that seat.”