HARRISBURG — The race to become Pennsylvania’s next attorney general will be one of the more closely watched contests this fall, as six candidates jockey for the chance to occupy one of the most powerful offices in the state.
Republican Dave Sunday will face Democrat Eugene DePasquale, as well as four third-party contenders: Justin L. Magill of the Constitution Party, Eric Settle of the Forward Party, Green Party candidate Richard L. Weiss, and Libertarian Robert Cowburn.
With a budget of $144 million and a staff of 1,060 prosecutors, attorneys, investigators, and other staff, the Office of Attorney General is, at its core, the law firm that represents Pennsylvania’s vast government and defends its laws in court.
But it also investigates and prosecutes everything from organized crime to political corruption, a mission that over the past several decades has boosted the office’s profile — and by extension, the public profile of the person at the helm of the agency.
Learn more about Sunday below:
Who is Dave Sunday?
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Born in Harrisburg and raised in Cumberland County, Dave Sunday served in the U.S. Navy then attended Penn State University and Widener University Commonwealth Law School.
Sunday, 49, is a career prosecutor who has made public safety and battling the opioid epidemic the cornerstone of his campaign for the office.
The Republican has been York County’s district attorney since 2018. Sunday began his legal career as a law clerk for a York County Common Pleas judge before joining the county district attorney’s office. There, he handled cases involving drug and other major crimes, eventually rising to oversee some of the office’s biggest cases.
He was also appointed by the Department of Justice in 2013 as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, where he worked on drug, gang, and illegal gun cases, including prosecuting over 100 members and affiliates of the Latin Kings, a violent criminal gang operating in York County.
In an interview last year with the York Daily Record, Sunday said the first galvanizing moment in his career came in 2012 when he prosecuted a case involving a man who had repeatedly scammed an older York County resident with Alzheimer's disease out of thousands of dollars.
The case, he told the newspaper, made his blood boil. It also made him realize that the criminal justice system needs to be more responsive to the people who unwittingly get entangled in it, including families of those charged with crimes.
The second galvanizing moment in his career was the opioid epidemic.
The epidemic produced a new wave of crime related to the desperation felt by people struggling with addiction. Sunday said it became imperative to go beyond prosecuting those crimes to understand the underlying causes of the crisis.
The York County District Attorney’s office began working with the coroner as well as community organizations toward that goal, a collaborative effort Sunday said led to decreases in crime, in opioid deaths, and the county’s criminal caseload.
“What we do when we prosecute cases is just the tip of the iceberg,” he told the newspaper.
York County has seen a reduction in crime and its prison population during his tenure, according to the York Daily Record. The City of York experienced a 36% drop in gun crime from 2022 to 2023, the news outlet reported.
“Everyone is given the opportunity to change their life,” Sunday told the paper of the York County Group Violence Intervention initiative, where he is a founding member. “The reality is, if you don’t do that, you’re going to be arrested and be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunday directed local law enforcement not to issue citations to businesses that violated Gov. Wolf’s business closure order. He issued a similar mandate not to prosecute citations related to Wolf’s 2021 order requiring masking in schools.
“This order includes built-in justifications and the language of the order does not include the details of how they can be proven,” Sunday said at the time.
Sunday was the first Republican to announce his candidacy for attorney general last year. Though he was endorsed by the party, he faced a challenger in this past spring’s primary election, which became a scrappier fight for the nomination than expected.
Sunday’s opponent, state Rep. Craig Williams of Delaware County, tried to brand Sunday as a progressive on criminal justice issues, a characterization that Sunday has denied. Earlier in life, Sunday was registered as a Democrat. In a letter to supporters, Sunday explained that when he was young, he followed family tradition when first registering to vote, but that it became clear after college that his views were firmly Republican.
During a debate between the two men this past March, Sunday said “the No. 1 issue” facing the state is the fentanyl epidemic.
“I’m running for attorney general because I believe that our open border and the fentanyl pouring in here is going to kill more Americans and more Pennsylvanians than we’ve ever seen in our lives,” Sunday said at the time.
Top issues: Public safety and the opioid epidemic are Sunday’s top priorities. He’s pointed to his collaborative work in York County as a model, and described his philosophy as “accountability and redemption.”
During a March debate, Sunday argued one of the No. 1 causes of crime is the failure to arrest, charge, and prosecute people for illegal possessions of firearms. “Because until that's done, we are never going to see a change,” he said.
Sunday said during the same debate that he does not believe the state constitution guarantees a right to abortion access, arguing that decision belongs to the legislature.
He later added, “I will follow the law, whatever that law is, as determined by the legislature.”
When asked about election integrity, Sunday said that in York County he assigned detectives to investigate criminal election complaints. “And as a result of that, we were able to see … that there was not material fraud in the county of York to have changed the York County election,” he said. “I can't speak to any other place.”
During the debate, Sunday said he does not support legalizing marijuana for recreational use, despite public support for it and a push by lawmakers to do so.
He also said he would seek the death penalty for qualifying crimes. The last execution in Pennsylvania occurred 25 years ago, and there is currently a moratorium on its use.
Endorsements: the Pennsylvania Republican Party; the Republican Attorneys General Association; Republican state senators including President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (Westmoreland); U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R., Pa.); Treasurer Stacy Garrity; York Fraternal Order of Police No. 73; the Pennsylvania State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police; the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association; and ChamberPAC, the political arm of the Pennsylvania Chamber.
>>READ MORE: Your guide to the candidates for attorney general
