On Tuesday, the country may once again look to Pennsylvania | Mike Newall

Every Sunday, Mike Newall brings you an inside look at a story defining Philly this week and a preview of what’s coming in the week ahead.

Okay, Pennsylvania. We got our extra hour of sleep — the longest weekend until the very end of the century. Now, it’s time to “save the republic,” according to Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Once again, the balance of power in Washington could hang on a few key Keystone State counties. We got this. Right, Pennsylvania?

Here’s the basic state of play: Democrats need a net gain of three seats to win back control of Congress. They can win them in four nationally watched Pennsylvania swing districts. Gov. Josh Shapiro leads by double digits. Trump is sinking like a stone in the Schuylkill. The economy. War in Iran. Surging gas prices. Surging inflation. The desperation feels real, the anger urgent.

In Pennsylvania, where we’ve been bombarded with more than $121 million in ads, polls are mainly within the margin of error. Ready the cold pizza and warm beer. It could be a long night on Tuesday.

Fear not. We got you. First, don’t be a crumb bum. Vote! Just type your address into this exceptionally handy Inquirer 2026 midterms Voter’s Guide. It has everything you need to know to cast your ballot without a hitch.

Inquirer political reporters Fallon Roth and Sam Janesch have been pounding the pavement of Pennsylvania battlegrounds for months. They’re here to cut through the noise and tell us all we need to channel our inner Steve Kornacki (khakis optional).

Mike: Hey guys! So what’s your white board look like right now?

Sam: So many more races are in play. The map has expanded across all these Republican areas over just the last month.

Mike: All eyes on Bucks County where five-term Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is narrowly losing in polls to Democratic county commissioner Bob Harvie.

Sam: Fitzpatrick is the moderate, least-Trumpy house Republican trying to hold on in the worst political environment of the Trump Era.

Fallon: All of our political rating agencies and forecasters are saying it’s a toss-up. If Bob Harvie is able to pull off a win, that would be monumental for Democrats. A Democrat has not represented Bucks County since 2011. It would be the last of the four collar counties to flip blue.

Mike: Things have gotten particularly nasty in the Harrisburg-area race where Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry and Democrat Janelle Stelson remain tied.

Sam: One of the biggest Trump supporters in Congress, Perry, is trying to skate through again after Democrats thought they had him on the ropes a few years ago in Harrisburg.

Mike: Rumors of Trump’s demise have long abounded.

Sam: It really is all about Trump, and this is maybe the last major election where that is going to be true. It’s all about his staying power. How it actually plays out, which districts they win and lose and how big Shapiro likely wins by, will determine a lot about what democrats do in the next two years, and who they nominate in 2028.

Fallon: It just reinforces that Pennsylvania is always going to be so important politically, no matter what happens.

Zitner’s Fine Confections is back! The century-old Philly candy company — famed for its cream-filled chocolate Easter eggs — missed last year’s holiday season after it shuttered its North Philly plant. Inquirer food reporter Michael Klein recently visited Zitner’s shiny new Montgomery County factory, where humming production lines crank out 220 eggs a minute. The candy could hit shelves before Christmas.

The Justice Department plans to dispatch 1,000 election monitors nationwide Tuesday, including to polling stations in Philadelphia, Allegheny, Luzerne, and Lehigh Counties. The monitors may observe and take notes but cannot interfere with voting, according to a letter obtained by the Inquirer.

Read Inquirer alum, Jeremy Roebuck, who now covers the Justice Department for the Washington Post, on the Trump administration’s frenetic planning to protest an election that hasn’t even happened yet.

Philly’s dry spell could end by the end of next week with potentially “prolific” rainfall. But no worries, Election Day forecasts call for a balmy 69 degrees in Philadelphia.

And in a bit of unrelated, but equally consequential news, Philly will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of Rocky next week with events at the Philadelphia Visitor Center and the Art Museum steps.

In honor of the pending milestone, I asked John Giordano, former owner of P & F Giordano Fruit and Produce and a teenage fruit vendor back in 1976, of his memories of the day an unknown actor named Sylvester Stallone showed up in the Italian Market to film the movie’s now iconic training montage.

“There were always people filming down on Ninth Street,” he said, with a laugh. “It was really low budget, like a single camera on the back of a van. We were just working in the store, and like, ‘there’s another guy making a movie.’ Now I must have seen that movie a hundred times.”

Her name was Philly. And she was said to be the greatest war dog of them all. Her origins remain a mystery. By 1917, the pint-sized stray with a scruffy coat and devilish grin rambled into the training camp of “Philadelphia’s Own” — a famed World War I Army unit made up of local raw recruits.

When the Doughboys shipped off to war, a sergeant smuggled the beloved mascot in a shirtsleeve.

Philly excelled at war. On the blood-soaked Western Front, she earned a reputation as a fierce sentry. She was wounded. Poison gas and some shrapnel in the tail. Pinned with makeshift “Purple Hearts,” she returned to duty. She was a comfort to the men. Tired of her heroics, Germans placed a 50 Deutsche mark bounty on her head.

At war’s end, she marched in Washington with the troops. President Woodrow Wilson cheered the “Heroine of the Trenches.”

Living out her life in Frankford, she enjoyed meals of lamb liver at unit reunions, before dying peacefully of old age in 1932. Her owner, an old sergeant, buried her in his driveway until the 315th raised funds for a taxidermist to preserve and mount her. For years, Philly was displayed behind glass at the 315th’s division headquarters on Wissahickon Avenue, and then the Atwater Kent Museum. She has been wrapped in Mylar in storage at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts since the museum shuttered in 2018.

Recently, Michael Shepherd, an associate director of the Atwater Kent Collection, received an unexpected call from a national institution wanting temporarily display the old war dog (he doesn’t want to say which yet). This week, Shepherd will consult researchers at Drexel University’s Materials Characterization Core lab, about testing taxidermy for hazardous chemicals, like arsenic, once used by taxidermists. His fingers are crossed.

“She was like the mini-Rocky statue of her time,” he said. “She meant something to people. She was a hero and she deserves to be honored.”