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Democrats Sweep State Row Offices
For the first time, Pennsylvania Democrats have swept the three state row offices on election night. Kathleen Kane has been elected Attorney General; Eugene DePasquale will be the next Auditor General; and Treasurer Rob McCord was re-elected to a second term.
Kane’s victory is particularly historic. She becomes not only the first Democrat to be elected Attorney General since it became an elected office in 1980, but also the first woman selected for the post by voters. Two women have served as Attorney General, but both were appointed, including Linda Kelly who is currently serving out the remaining term of Tom Corbett.
DePasquale defeated fellow State Representative John Maher to become Auditor General and McCord bested Republican challenger Diane Irey Vaughan in the Treasurer’s race.
URGENT – Casey Wins Re-Election to U.S. Senate
Incumbent Democrat Bob Casey has won re-election to the U.S. Senate, winning a second 6-year term in Washington. Casey defeated Republican challlenger Tom Smith.
Smith largely funded his own campaign, spending millions of his own money, outspending Casey by an estimated 2-to-1 margin.
URGENT – President Obama Carries Pennsylvania
President Barack Obama has won Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes. As expected, the President won strong support in the southeast, including Philadelphia where Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 6-to-1 in the state’s largest city.
The President also saw strong support in the Pittsburgh area while Mitt Romney did well in the so-called “Pennsylvania T,” consisting of central PA and the northern tier.
State House, Senate Seats up for Grabs Too
The big races, like President and US Senate, may be getting most of the attention today, but state lawmakers are also jockeying for position all across the state. All 203 state House seats are on the ballot, as well as half of the 50 seats in the state Senate.
Terry Madonna
Franklin & Marshall College political science professor Terry Madonna doesn’t expect any sweeping changes in the makeup of the Republican-controlled legislature tonight. “There won’t be the huge coattails that would help Democrats win back control of the legislature,” Madonna says. “It looks like in the House they may pick up a couple of seats, but I think it’s largely going to be the same composition in the House.”
Ditto for the Senate, where Madonna could see the Democrats pick up a few seats, but not enough to win back control. The GOP held a 30 – 20 edge in the Senate for most of the legislative session, but a retirement in western Pennsylvania makes the current tally 29 – 20, with one vacancy.
Another factor to consider is that of the 203 state House seats, nearly 100 incumbents are unopposed on today’s ballot. Nine incumbent state Senators are unopposed as well.
The Polls Are Open
Polls opened statewide at 7:00am this morning, as voters begin the process of selecting a recipient for Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes. Both the Obama and Romney campaigns turned up the heat in the Keystone State in the campaign’s final days after largely ignoring Pennsylvania for months, or sending surrogates to campaign.
Pennsylvania voters are also selecting a U.S. Senator and three state row officers (Attorney General, Auditor General & Treasurer). All 203 seats in the state House are also up for election, as are half of the seats in the state Senate.
The polls will be open until 8:00pm this evening.
US Senate Candidates Crisscross the State
Pennsylvania’s US Senate battle was largely being waged via expensive TV ads until a few short weeks ago when the two candidates began hitting the campaign trail in earnest. Both men spent the day Monday barnstorming the state from end to end.
Bob Casey on the campaign trail
Democratic incumbent Bob Casey holds a 15 – 1 advantage in the area of newspaper endorsements, at last check. “I’m pleased that when editorial writers who probe pretty deeply and read a lot about my record, and the contrasts with my opponent, that we’ve received those newspaper editorial board endorsements from East and West and all across the state,” Casey tells Radio PA in a telephone interview. “I’m very proud of that.”
Casey is positioning himself as the independent voice for middle class Pennsylvanians. He points to his leadership on the payroll tax cut, and the fact that he broke with his own party to vote against a trio of trade deals he thought would hurt PA workers.
Republican Tom Smith would argue, however, that Sen. Casey doesn’t know how to grow the economy, because he’s been a politician for most of his adult life.
Smith started out on his family’s farm and later went to work in a western Pennsylvania coal mine; he went into the coal business in the late 1980s and sold his companies in 2010.
Tom Smith stops to talk to reporters
“We cannot continue to borrow 40-cents of every dollar we spent, borrow it from places like China,” Smith said after greeting phone bank volunteers in Cumberland County recently.
Smith has reached deep into his own pocketbook to fund his campaign, and to make up ground on Sen. Casey, who is no stranger to statewide politics. The polls have varied in recent weeks, but the latest Franklin & Marshall College Poll shows Casey with a ten point lead (46 – 36). 13% of likely voters were still undecided.
Libertarians Field Full Slate of Statewide Candidates
In all the statewide races you’ll notice a Republican, a Democrat … and a Libertarian. Roy Minet with the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania recognizes that many voters may not be familiar with them. “You can state the Libertarian philosophy very simply in just four words, live and let live,” Minet explains. “Each individual has to be free has to be free to do what she or he pleases, as long as she or he does not infringe upon the equal rights of others.”
In a sense Libertarians are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, but Minet tells us you cannot throw them into any of the usual categories.
The Libertarian Party endured a nine week legal challenge to its nominating petitions in Pennsylvania, before the state Supreme Court ultimately ruled they had 24,252 valid signatures; well over the 20,601 that were required.
Minet says they are fighting to give Pennsylvanians a third choice. “Voting for someone that you believe is really going to move us in the right direction is never a waste of a vote.”
There are roughly 39,000 registered Libertarians across the state, but Minet believes there are many more who are registered Democrat or Republican in order to participate in the primary process.
Two State Reps Vie to Become Auditor General
No mud-slinging in this race; just two elected officials touting their own credentials. Take Republican John Maher of Allegheny County. He was a certified public accountant long before he became a member of the state House. “In these difficult fiscal times, there’s undoubted need to ensure that waste and fraud is squeezed out, so that every dollar of taxpayer money actually goes to the purposes that are intended,” Maher explained, as he told Radio PA the state needs a bona fide auditor to ferret out waste and fraud.
Democrat Eugene DePasquale of York County was a deputy secretary at then-Governor Ed Rendell’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) before he was elected to the House. “I was the first legislator to post my expenses online, I have the lowest expenses of any legislator in the state,” DePasquale said while touting his track record of eliminating wasteful spending.
DePasquale is pledging to prioritize audits of the state’s water protection and job creation programs to find out what’s working and what’s providing taxpayers with a ‘bang for their buck.’ Maher wants to address the backlog of required school district audits as a part of his effort to produce timely audits, and thus timely results for taxpayers.
Both men are also on the ballot for reelection to their respective state House seats, but each has also pledged not to seek higher office while serving as Auditor General.
Libertarian Betsy Summers will round out Pennsylvanians’ choices for Auditor General on November 6th. All three are vying to replace Democrat Jack Wagner who is leaving office after serving his maximum two terms.