It's just not that simple, and it's certainly not a legitimate excuse for the Burns defeat.
Geraghty is clueless, just like so many other pontificating pundits, Republican establishment hacks and Tim Burns apologists.
These clowns drank the Burns kool-aid and now they're trying to spin their way out of it by impugning the integrity of the voters or the Russell campaign.
In reality, which eludes Geraghty and others, more votes were cast in the PA-12 special election than the PA-12 R and D primaries combined. The roughly 8,000 "extra" votes represent independents, who were allowed to vote in the special but not in the primaries. Republicans who voted for Russell in the primary also voted for Burns in the special election, even Bill Russell himself told his supporters that's exactly what he wanted them to do.
Yeah, bad assessment by Geraghty.
In a 2-to-1 (D) district where the (D) ran as if he were not a (D), Burns didn’t do that bad.
Hopes high for Russell.