HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania voters will elect a new attorney general this November, but Democrats and Republicans first must pick their candidates this spring.

The attorney general represents the interests of the state and the public, and defends Pennsylvania’s laws in court. In recent years, the office has defended the results of the 2020 presidential election against numerous attempts to overturn them.

Five Democrats and two Republicans are running for their party’s nomination and will appear on the April 23 primary ballot. Only registered members of those parties can cast ballots for candidates during spring elections; all voters can participate in November.

While the state Republican Party has endorsed one of the candidates, the Democratic Party has declined to do so; no candidate was able to meet the two-thirds threshold to get the endorsement.

The office has been under Democratic control since 2013, save for a handful of days in August 2016 when Republican Bruce Castor led it following the conviction of former Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane for perjury and abuse of office.

Since then, the office has not made headlines for controversy but rather for a major grand jury investigation of Catholic clergy abuse by Democrat Josh Shapiro, who is now Pennsylvania’s governor.

The yearslong investigation drew national and international attention for exposing how top Catholic leaders in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and hundreds of priests over several decades.

The damning report prompted a chain of similar investigations nationwide and also led several Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania to launch programs to compensate victims who were too old under state law to file lawsuits.

The office in recent years also became known for its participation in multistate investigations and litigation involving the pharmaceutical industry’s role in fueling the nation’s opioid crisis, as well as for prosecuting some natural gas companies.