Pennsylvania election results to watch include governor, U.S. House, legislature, and more. Results will begin to show here after 8 p.m. on May 19.
Results for statewide races can also be found on the Department of State website. Local results may be posted by individual counties on their websites.
For complete coverage of the 2026 election, visit Spotlight PA’s Election Center.
Pennsylvania election results
For voters interested in seeing rolling tallies, Spotlight PA is making available for free a tool that displays Associated Press results. While there are many races on Tuesday’s ballot, the Associated Press will only track results in a handful of contests.
Those results will be displayed under each office noted below. Please check back as results will be updated regularly.
Pa. governor
At the top of the ballot this election is the governor’s race — though neither party officially has a contested May primary.
Incumbent Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro was elected to the role in 2022 and is seeking a second term in office. You can read more about Shapiro in our candidate guide.
State Treasurer Stacy Garrity is the sole Republican candidate in the primary, though a write-in campaign for state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin) is in the works. You can read more about Garrity in our candidate guide.
Pa. lieutenant governor
In Pennsylvania, candidates for lieutenant governor must run for the role in the primary separately from gubernatorial candidates, though they can team up and campaign together as a ticket if they choose.
The candidate for the Democratic Party is incumbent Austin Davis. Davis, who is from McKeesport in Allegheny County, is Pennsylvania’s first Black person to hold the role, and also the youngest in the country, according to his office.
The candidates for the Republican Party are Jason Richey and John Ventre.
Richey is a construction, real estate, and commercial law attorney at a Pittsburgh-based firm, where he has worked for almost three decades and is a partner. Garrity formally backed his run for lieutenant governor in hopes of him becoming her running mate for the fall.
Ventre says he oversaw security, crisis management and public affairs at UPS in six states, including Pennsylvania, for more than thirty years. He is also a prominent UFO enthusiast — he hosted Pittsburgh’s annual UFO conference in April — and is an author whose novels cover topics including fictional accounts of UFO sightings, prophecies, and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has never held public office, though he unsuccessfully ran twice for commissioner of Westmoreland County and once for governor.
You can read more about the candidates in our lieutenant governor candidate guide here.
U.S. House
The U.S. House of Representatives is made up of 435 elected lawmakers. The number of members from each state is based on its population — Pennsylvania has 17 representatives.
Members of the U.S. House serve two-year terms and are up for reelection during even years.
All but one of 17 members of Pennsylvania’s U.S. House delegation seek reelection in 2026. Who is listed on your ballot will be dictated by the congressional district you live in.
To find out who represents your district, visit the U.S. House of Representatives lookup tool.
Pa. House and Senate
The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the legislative branch of the commonwealth, and like Congress, it has a lower and upper chamber: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The state Senate consists of 50 members and the state House has 203, making it the largest full-time legislature in the country.
The General Assembly is mainly responsible for proposing and passing state laws, and developing the state budget.
There will be 228 state legislative races on the ballot this year — this includes all of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives and half the state Senate.
You can read about the primary races with the biggest potential to shape the state House and Senate in our guide.
To learn how to evaluate legislative candidates who are on the ballot this primary election, check out our vetting guide.
To find who is running in your district, check your county election website for a sample ballot.
Frequently asked questions
Q: When will we know the final results of the election?
A: Votes will be counted throughout the evening on Nov. 4 after polls close at 8 p.m. and released in batches for several hours. By state law, Pennsylvania counties cannot process mail ballots before Election Day, and many have different procedures for counting votes and in what order.
Q: How can I find the latest election results in Pennsylvania?
A: For statewide races, you can check the Department of State’s election results website here. Local results may be posted by individual counties on their websites.
Q: Can I track my mail ballot in Pennsylvania?
A: Yes, the Pennsylvania Department of State allows you to track your ballot on its website. Go to pavoterservices.pa.gov/Pages/BallotTracking.aspx, where you will see a prompt to enter your name, date of birth, and county of residence. You can also contact your county election office to confirm the status of your ballot.
Q: What happens if there is a recount?
In Pennsylvania, a recount is automatically triggered when the margin is .5% or less. Election officials must then carry out the recount.
Three or more voters in a voting precinct can also request a recount. Candidates cannot request a recount.
A recount must be completed within three weeks of the election.
Learn more about recounts from The Inquirer.
Q: How does the media get election results?
A: The Pennsylvania Department of State and county election offices make results available to the media.
Q: What is the process for certifying election results in Pennsylvania?
A: According to reporting by Votebeat, the process begins when the polls close and “counties begin uploading in-person results to their websites and that of the Department of State.”
A few days later, counties will begin their official canvass of the election.
“The canvass is just going through and double-, triple-checking that you have all of the ballots accounted for,” said Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Iowa who specializes in elections law, in 2022. Election officials are “making sure that everything is included and that every lawfully cast ballot is included in that final tally.”
“County elections offices will process provisional ballots during this time, checking to make sure the voters who cast them had not already submitted a mail-in ballot or whether the provisional ballots were somehow otherwise ineligible,” Votebeat reported. “Counties will also ‘reconcile’ their votes, meaning they will check to ensure that the number of voters recorded as having cast ballots in a given precinct matches the number of ballots counted from that precinct.”
“County elections offices also perform post-election audits during this period. Counties are required to do a recount of a random sample of 2% of ballots cast or 2,000 ballots, whichever is fewer. Many counties also began conducting risk-limiting audits after the 2020 election, in which a random sample of ballots are hand-counted to ensure the totals match the results from the tabulation machine.”
By the Tuesday after Election Day, counties must submit results — as up-to-date as possible, but still unofficial — to the Department of State. These figures could change slightly as military and overseas ballots are counted and included in the tallies, per Votebeat.
“Local boards of election, comprised of the county’s commissioners, must sign a copy of the results twice for an election to be certified. Typically, candidates raise any challenges to the canvassing process in the five-day window between the first and second signings.”