CNN Ranks Pennsylvania’s Senate Seat as the Most Likely to Flip in 2022, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball Calls This Race the Only True “Toss-up”

June 9, 2021

PHILADELPHIA — Today, 314 Action Fund announced its endorsement of Dr. Val Arkoosh, the chair of Pennsylvania’s third largest county, in the 2022 race for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat. If elected, Arkoosh would be the first woman in Pennsylvania elected to a statewide federal office and the first woman physician elected to the U.S. Senate. CNN has already deemed this U.S. Senate seat the most likely to change party hands in 2022, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball currently considers it the only true “toss-up” Senate seat on next year’s map.

“We are committed at 314 Action to ensuring that Val Arkoosh becomes the next United States Senator from Pennsylvania. This Senate race is the best chance for Democrats to pick up a seat and Val is far and away the strongest candidate in this race,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action. “Last year, Val became one of the Commonwealth’s leaders on the pandemic response, and her science-first, evidence-based approach to policymaking saved lives. If she’s the nominee, there’s no question this seat flips blue next year — because as 2020 showed us, voters trust and want to vote for candidates with science backgrounds. They win races, and with the majority up for grabs, we need to nominate a winner like Val in the Keystone State.”

“As a doctor, I learned early on you can’t BS your way out of a problem — you have to solve it,” said Val Arkoosh. “And if the last several months have shown us anything, it’s that we need more of that no-nonsense problem solving in Washington. I’m running for Senate to take what I’ve learned as a physician and public health advocate, as well as leading our Commonwealth’s third-largest county, to Washington so I can get things done for workers and families across Pennsylvania. And I’m honored 314 Action Fund is joining the winning coalition we are building.”

Ahead of this critical U.S. Senate election, 314 Action Fund will commit its vast resources and six-million-strong membership base of grassroots supporters to ensure that Arkoosh is the Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania. In the 2020 cycle, 314 Action Fund’s independent expenditure arm spent over $11.5 million, including significant expenditures in several primary contests.

During the last election cycle, 314 Action Fund collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to successfully draft scientists Sen. Mark Kelly and Sen. John Hickenlooper to run for U.S. Senate and raised millions of dollars in grassroots donations for their campaigns.

In 2022, 314 Action Fund will aim to spend $50 million to elect scientists across all levels of government, with initial targets of seven U.S. Senate races — including Pennsylvania — forty U.S. House races, and twenty-one statewide races. In 2020, the organization spent $25 million on behalf of its endorsed candidates and raised a total of $5 million in grassroots donations for scientists running for office.

ABOUT VAL ARKOOSH:

As a physician of over twenty years, Arkoosh came to realize that so many of the issues facing her patients were happening outside the exam room. Issues of public policy, such as trouble with access to affordable housing, healthy food, or reliable transportation often set her patients back and provided seemingly insurmountable obstacles. This realization led Arkoosh to pursue a public health degree, and as president of the National Physicians Alliance, Arkoosh pushed for the passage of the Affordable Care Act. 

As the Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, Arkoosh leads  Pennsylvania’s third-largest county. She has overseen Montgomery County’s fulfillment of its promise to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for county employees. To help combat the the climate crisis, Arkoosh led the county in its successful effort to transition buildings owned by the county to all-wind energy for electrical power, and she worked to make sure the county committed to transition to renewable energy to heat all county buildings and powering county vehicles in the next thirty years. Arkoosh is also a former member of the 314 Action Board of Advisors

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314 Action Fund is powered by a grassroots community of over six million people working to elect scientists, doctors, and STEM professionals who will use science and facts to address our most pressing issues like climate change and health care. In 2018 and 2020, we played a pivotal role in flipping the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, electing eleven Democratic scientists to federal office, as well as over 100 to state and local offices. In 2021 and 2022, 314 Action Fund will continue working to elect science leaders and defeat climate deniers in Congress and legislatures across the country.