An unusually crowded primary to replace State Rep. Mary Jo Daley is playing out in Montco. Here’s what to know.

A crowded Democratic primary is underway in Montgomery County, as a roster of hopefuls vie to replace retiring State Rep. Mary Jo Daley.

Four candidates are jockeying for Daley’s seat: former Narberth Mayor Andrea Deutsch, Pennsylvania House staffer Megan Griffin-Shelley, environmental attorney Jason Landau Goodman, and criminal justice researcher Leo Solga.

The 148th state House district, which covers parts of Lower Merion Township, all of Narberth Borough, and parts of Whitemarsh Township, is a Democratic stronghold, and the winner of the May 19 primary is all but certain to succeed Daley in Harrisburg. No Republican is seeking the seat.

Daley was elected to the state House in 2012, and was reelected to serve six more consecutive terms before her decision to retire last October.

The four candidates for Daley’s seat largely align on the issues: funding SEPTA, protecting abortion access, lowering healthcare costs, supporting public schools, and safeguarding environmental protections.

Absent much squabbling over policy planks, the candidates are campaigning on their qualifications and which state and local leaders are getting in line to support them.

Here’s what to know.

Deutsch, 58, is the former mayor of Narberth, a former Narberth Borough Council member, an attorney, and the owner of pet store Spot’s — The Place for Paws.

Deutsch joined Narberth’s council in 2012 and, in 2018, was the first woman sworn in as the borough’s mayor. She served two terms in the role.

A diabetic, Deutsch has been an advocate for lowering health insurance costs, and has made trips to Washington, D.C., to speak before the White House Business Council and Senate Health Committee.

Deutsch describes herself as the only candidate with true government experience — working with borough council to pass ordinances, balancing budgets, negotiating contracts, and managing law enforcement while she sat at the helm of Narberth.

“I haven’t had to exaggerate a single accomplishment in this race because my record speaks for itself,” Deutsch said at a forum hosted by the Narberth Civic Association.

Griffin-Shelley, 30, grew up and now lives in Whitemarsh Township. She spent a year as a teacher at Chestnut Hill’s Norwood-Fontbonne Academy, a private Catholic school, before moving to a constituent services role in State Rep. Ben Sanchez’s office in Abington in 2021.

Since 2023, she has worked for nearby State Rep. Nancy Guenst, most recently as district office director, a position she’s held since January 2025. Griffin-Shelley says Guenst, a rank-and-file Democratic member of the state House, recruited her to run for the 148th. Griffin-Shelley serves as a top aide to Guenst, and leads Guenst’s Hatboro office.

Griffin-Shelley was elected to the Whitemarsh Township Board of Supervisors last fall, and has served on the board since January.

She announced her campaign for the 148th in December.

Griffin-Shelley said her experience mobilizing voters in the local Democratic Party and working in a legislator’s office make her the candidate best-suited to hit the ground running in the state Capitol. She said her “direct experience inside the state government” has allowed her to see the “inner workings of Harrisburg” and be “the representative when the representative couldn’t be in the room.”

Griffin-Shelley said she worked on a bipartisan bill to allow nurse practitioners to have full practice authority in Pennsylvania, coordinating meetings and being part of conversations about the bill’s text.

“Who I am is constituent services. That’s what I do, and that is a huge edge I have against every candidate on the stage,” Griffin-Shelley said at the candidate forum.

Landau Goodman, 37, has had his sights set on the 148th for roughly the last two years. In 2024, he briefly pursued a primary challenge to Daley but dropped out before the election.

A fourth-generation Lower Merion resident, Landau Goodman currently lives in Bala Cynwyd. He’s the former assistant counsel in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, where he focused on air quality issues and environmental justice under the Wolf and Shapiro administrations. He’s a former lobbyist in Harrisburg and in 2011, cofounded the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, a statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy organization.

He said he led the drafting and organizing process for the Pennsylvania Safe Schools Act in 2012, which targets bullying, harassment, and intimidation in schools. The bill was introduced various times over the years in the state House, but Landau Goodman said his organization did not have the resources to push the bill through the legislative process. If elected, he said he would “champion” this legislation. The environmental lawyer said he feels like his experience in Harrisburg will help him forge connections as a legislator.

Landau Goodman has criticized a political system he describes as at risk of being swayed by outside interests. He says he decided to run two years ago because it was time to “start a real conversation early about this next generation of leadership in the 148th,” and because he anticipated that “political insiders would make that decision for our communities and they would shut out any community-backed candidate” when it came to anointing Daley’s successor.

Solga, 22, is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a researcher at Penn’s law school. Solga is a Lower Merion High School graduate, and he describes himself as a public transit commuter, a union organizer and — borrowing a line from Hamilton — “young, scrappy, and hungry.”

Solga has said bringing young people into the fold is critical for the Democratic Party, which has lost ground with Gen Z voters, especially men, in recent years.

His campaign has been powered by local college Democratic groups, and he’s earned the endorsement of the College Democrats of America, among other student organizations.

With the candidates aligned on major policy issues, the primary has largely come down to the four Democrats’ backgrounds and the stakeholders throwing their support behind them. Griffin-Shelley and Landau Goodman, considered the race’s front-runners, have amassed the most public endorsements.

One major endorsement is missing from the race: the Montgomery County Democratic Committee.

The committee and its local affiliates typically make endorsements early on in the election cycle through votes cast by elected committee people, usually clearing the field for the winner and bypassing a competitive party primary.

But at the county’s Democratic convention in February, no candidate could break the 60% of the vote needed to secure an endorsement (Deutsch, Griffin-Shelley, and Landau Goodman sought the endorsement, while Solga sat it out in protest of the process, calling it a system that “encourages insider decisions” and a “wait-your-turn mentality.”)

Jason Salus, chair of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee, said in an interview he doesn’t believe “waiting your turn” is applicable in this race.

“Everybody has an equal shot,” he said.

Daley, for her part, has been clear about one requirement for her successor.

“I want to see a woman in this seat,” she said in a February email to committee people, obtained by The Inquirer.

“Representation matters. I want that woman to bring other women with her,” she wrote.

Daley, despite originally intending to stay neutral in the race, endorsed Griffin-Shelley, one of two women in the competitive primary, after speaking with voters and other stakeholders.

In an interview Wednesday, Daley said out of the four candidates, she believed Griffin-Shelley’s experience and community involvement earned her the legislator’s endorsement.

“She’s really the only candidate that really stands out,” Daley, who is one of eight current or former lawmakers backing the Whitemarsh supervisor.

Griffin-Shelley’s support from past and present lawmakers has been countered by Landau Goodman’s backing by dozens of local elected officials, committee people, and school board members in Lower Merion and Narberth, including eight of 14 Lower Merion commissioners and Narberth Mayor Dana Edwards.

Michael Salmanson, a Narberth borough council member who endorsed Landau Goodman, said the candidate made an impression when he fought for a non-discrimination ordinance in Lower Merion a decade ago.

“I thought he had a really good grasp of the political realities and the need for change.”

The primary is on May 19. You can read the Inquirer’s guide to the Pennsylvania primary here.

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