Pennsylvania Ping!
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Posted on 11/10/2022 8:38:48 PM PST by lightman
The balance of political power in Pennsylvania has taken a left turn as the Republican-controlled state House lost at least 12 Republican seats in the Nov. 8 election and could lose more. Control of the chamber will remain undecided until at least next week because results in two races are too close to call.
Democrat Mark Moffa, with 15,095 votes, has two votes more than Republican Joe Hogan’s 15,093 in District 142, Bucks County. Neither candidate is an incumbent; this is a new district due to redistricting.
Those totals are not expected to change for days, Jim O’Malley, deputy director of communications for Bucks County told The Epoch Times. Currently, Bucks County election workers are inspecting provisional and segregated ballots and determining which ones can be counted. They will make a report about those ballots to the Bucks County Board of Elections on Tuesday, Nov. 15, and the board will determine the next steps for those ballots.
The process is similar in Montgomery County’s District 151, where Rep. William Todd Stephens, a Republican incumbent, has 16,611 votes and leads with 26 votes over Democrat Melissa Cerrato’s 16,585 votes.
No automatic recount is triggered for legislative races. A campaign or other organization would have to file a request to recount, Montgomery County spokeswoman Kelly Cofrancisco told The Epoch Times.
“The other outstanding ballots include our provisional and military/overseas ballots which we have until next week, Nov. 15, to accept,” Cofrancisco said. “Next week our Board of Elections will hold a provisional ballot hearing to determine which ballots will be included in the final count. We have until Nov. 28 to certify the election.”
Dead Candidate Wins
In total, there are 203 Pennsylvania House seats. In the current session there are 113 Republicans, 88 Democrats, and two vacant seats.
The new configuration, so far, is 101 Republicans and 100 Democrats, plus those two undetermined races.
And here is a wrinkle: the new House will have three vacant seats right away.
Longtime Democrat Rep. Anthony M. “Tony” DeLuca, 85, died on Oct. 9, and having held the seat for 39 years, was running for another term. When he died, the ballots had already been printed.
Voters chose to cast their ballots for a dead man rather than the Green Party candidate. DeLuca got 85 percent of the vote compared with 14 percent for Green candidate Queonia “Zarah” Livingston. No Republican ran in this race.
Democrat state Representatives Summer Lee and Austin Davis both ran for two offices at once and won all four seats. Lee was reelected to the state house and also elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Davis was also reelected to the state house and at the same time, elected as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, filling the seat vacated by John Fetterman.
House seats all come up for election every two years. House members will be sworn in Jan. 3, 2023. The new speaker of the House will then schedule special elections for the vacant positions. The house votes as a whole to name a speaker. It is possible that Davis and Lee will be sworn in to the state House to help choose the speaker, then vacate their seats.
But DeLuca can’t vote from the grave.
If the final house count is 101 Republicans and 102 Democrats, with DeLuca missing, there will be 101 votes for each party. It is unclear how the House will determine speaker, and that issue has caused some chatter in the hallways of the Capitol in Harrisburg.
The Pennsylvania House and Senate have been solidly Republican-controlled since 2011. Outgoing Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf has had a sometimes-contentious relationship with the General Assembly. Wolf was never able to convince Republicans to raise the minimum wage or legalize recreational marijuana, although during the Wolf administration Pennsylvania did legalize medical marijuana. Wolf used executive orders to move his agenda forward.
While Pennsylvania’s Senate remains Republican, the House is close to flipping to Democrat control, giving incoming Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro a smoother ride to advance his agenda.
It will also signal a less purple Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Even if Democrats don’t get control of the House, they have gained much ground. Republicans, who have been accustomed to having enough votes to move legislation, only to have it stopped by the governor’s veto, will have to work harder to negotiate with Democrats.
More useless than tits on a bull.
Pennsylvania Ping!
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I think we will still hold on, but Mastreano was a debacle.
The GOP-Eeyores gave Mastriano even less $upport than they offered to Scott Wagner four years ago.
It doesn’t matter who wins the Primary: If it isn’t one of their own pretty boys they will be toast.
As I posted in another thread’s PA ping: I have never given the PA GOP-E so much as $0.01 and G-d willing, I never will!
Pennsylvania has become another steal state. The GOPE doors are too weak to fight it.
Doug Mastriano may have been the worst candidate the GOP had nationwide. Nobody even knew the guy was running till October his performance cost Oz the senate. As Doug lost by 14 Oz lost by a little under 3… you just can’t survive with a split like that
PA is the epicenter of political fraud - to the shame of our ‘union’ brothers.
They either participate or turn a blind-eye.
Mastriano also killed our chances in 4 house seats.
“Doug Mastriano may have been the worst candidate the GOP had nationwide”
Then you must have only watched Mastriano? He was ignored by the GOP, the media, and the DC beltway - on purpose.
Mastriano was the next DeSantis and they KNEW it. MAGA start to finish.
My apologies, but I have as much faith in your intellect, as I do in the PA election results. Your political acumen is off-kilter, in this case, (IMHO).
Watch more closely.
It that bunch of slappies would have fixed the election system 2 years ago, we might not be here. I liken Mastrano but he needed a campaign manager. If the R’s don’t start working together, as a party with a unifying message, we will continue to lose.
Embrace the suck.
Oh he was terrible he had avenues to get his name out there and I can see I’m dealing with the pseudo intellectual conservative who we all know Bartletta would have been a far better choice.
Exactly if he was competitive the gop wins those seats Lee Zeldin won the GOP the house cause of his amazing run in New York
Pennsylvania is taking after Kalifornia, useless republicans so it’s going full communist democrat, which is even more useless
I’m a thinkin’ that the fraud for Fetterneck brought in the lowers -
fraud vitiates everything.
“Doug Mastriano may have been the worst candidate the GOP had nationwide.”
Nah. He was MAGA all the way. It’s just Pa. is full of idiot voters who probably moved to FL. Not his fault.
RED WAVE IN NEW YORK DEMOCRAT STRONGHOLD
<><>AOC-endorsed candidate got beat two to one
<><>Republicans won six additional seats, perhaps more
<><>several Democrat =races still in jeopardy
<><>Dem Congressional Campaign Committee and party Finance Chair, Sean Maloney, lost
<><>Maloney spoke harshly re AOC’s apparent lack of election participation
<><>AOC played no part as the Democrat majority got decimated by Repubs.
“Pennsylvania has become another steal state. The GOPE doors are too weak to fight it.”
Perhaps they are partnered in the treason...
They cheated like mad in PA for the 2000 election. And it has only gotten much worse. Phili was always run by cheaters.
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