Democrat Susan Wild reelected to Congress in Allentown area
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The Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Counting of Pennsylvania ballots continued Friday, with results still unclear for the presidential contest as well as a host of other races.
Republican Tim DeFoor was declared the winner Friday in the auditor general’s race, making him the first GOP candidate in that job in more than two decades. Republicans kept control of both chambers of the Legislatures.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright was declared the winner in his race Friday afternoon for a fifth term in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District in the state’s northeastern corner. Cartwright beat Republican Jim Bognet. Democratic U.S. Rep. Susan Wild was declared the winner in her race for a second term in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District in the Allentown area.
Election officials are tabulating ballots in a state that held its first general election in which voters did not need an excuse to vote by mail. More than 3 million applied to do so.
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PRESIDENT
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are hotly contesting Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, with both campaigns seeing a victory in the state as crucial to their chances of winning the White House.
While county officials tally votes from what is shaping up as massive turnout, the Trump campaign, state election officials, Republican candidates and others have gone to court in recent weeks to settle fights over aspects of state election law, particularly its year-old law that greatly expanded mail-in voting.
Despite a flurry of legal action by Trump and the Republican Party over aspects of the count, counties across Pennsylvania headed toward the finish line Friday of a massive tabulating effort that included millions of mail-in ballots.
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CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 1
Second-term Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia, won reelection after being a top target again for Democrats as one of just three House Republicans in the country running for reelection in a district won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016′s presidential contest.
Fitzpatrick, a mild-mannered former FBI agent who took over the seat from his late brother, had been challenged by a relative political unknown nominated by Democrats, Christina Finello.
Fitzpatrick voted for Trump’s tax cut and opposed his impeachment. Finello attacked Fitzpatrick as too weak to stand up to Trump and silent in the face of the president’s worst transgressions.
Democrats have a roughly 15,000-voter registration advantage in the district, which Clinton won by 2 percentage points.
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CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 7
The freshman Democrat U.S. Rep. Wild defended her Allentown-area seat against Republican nominee Lisa Scheller, a former Lehigh County commissioner who started a pigment manufacturer for paints, coatings and inks and touted her background as someone recovered from addiction who advocates for people in recovery.
Wild, a prominent lawyer in Allentown, scored a 10-percentage-point thumping of her Republican opponent in 2018′s campaign for what was an open seat.
Wild declared victory Thursday evening, before The Associated Press called the race Friday.
The district is daunting for a Republican. Democrats have a 60,000-voter registration advantage. Scheller’s fundraising picked up and closed a big campaign cash advantage that Wild had held going into July.
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CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 8
The four-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Cartwright in northeastern Pennsylvania won reelection in a district where Trump is popular.
This time, Cartwright was challenged by Bognet, a first-time candidate who won a six-person GOP primary, in part, by promising to be a staunch Trump ally.
The district is anchored by the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, both Democratic bastions. But the party’s voter-registration advantage in the district — still at a considerable 58,000 — is shrinking, and Republican hopes of capturing it were perennial.
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CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 10
Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry has won a fifth term in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District in the Harrisburg-York area.
Perry beat Democrat Eugene DePasquale, the state’s two-term auditor general.
Perry, a staunch Trump supporter and owner of one of the most conservative voting records in the U.S. House, hung on for another term in a district that is becoming less conservative.
The race was Pennsylvania’s most expensive this year, attracting more than $11 million in spending by outside groups after a Democratic opponent with little name recognition came within 2.5 percentage points of knocking off Perry in 2018.
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CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 16
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly won a sixth term in a northwestern Pennsylvania district against a political newcomer, teacher Kristy Gnibus. Democrats had viewed Kelly as potentially vulnerable after he won his race by 4 percentage points in 2018.
The district has a Republican registration advantage, about 22,000, but Democratic parts of the district took the same conservative turn in 2016 as other historically Democratic parts of Pennsylvania where residents are whiter, less affluent and less educated.
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CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 17
U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb sought a second full term after becoming a Democratic star in 2018 for winning two races in two Trump districts — a special election in a district Trump won by 20 percentage points and a general election in a redrawn district against a three-term incumbent.
He declared victory late Wednesday, but The Associated Press has yet to call the race.
Lamb faced a challenge from Republican Sean Parnell, a decorated Army vet who is a regular guest on Fox News programs — he announced his candidacy during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” — and is known for his memoir on the war in Afghanistan and authoring two action novels.
Parnell is also a Trump darling. He got a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention and campaign stump shoutouts from Trump, with southwestern Pennsylvania a regular destination for Trump.
Parnell, in turn, adopted Trump’s law-and-order rhetoric.
The district runs from Pittsburgh’s suburbs through Ohio River towns to the Ohio border and has a heavy — albeit shrinking — Democratic registration advantage of 62,000 votes. But it is also home to many conservative Democrats who helped Trump win it by 2.5 percentage points in 2016.
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OTHER CONGRESSIONAL RACES
All of Pennsylvania’s 18 members of Congress sought reelection, and in early results at least 15 won — Republicans Kelly, Perry, John Joyce, Brian Fitzpatrick, Fred Keller, Guy Reschenthaler, Glenn Thompson, Lloyd Smucker and Dan Meuser; and Democrats Mike Doyle, Dwight Evans, Mary Gay Scanlon, Chrissy Houlahan, Brendan Boyle and Madeleine Dean.
Sometimes, your mornings are just too busy to catch the news beyond a headline or two. Don’t worry. The Morning Agenda has got your back. Each weekday morning, host Tim Lambert will keep you informed, amused, enlightened and up-to-date on what’s happening in central Pennsylvania and the rest of this great commonwealth.
