While Pennsylvania went for Sen. John Kerry last week in the presidential election with 51 percent of the vote, Republican candidates won the local Senate and House races, an outcome that reflects the GOP majority nationally in both legislative bodies. As projected, Republican incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter will return to a fifth term this year, retaining his seat with 53 percent of the vote. His challenger, Democrat Joe Hoeffel, lost with 42 percent of the vote, but surprised political analysts by gaining more votes than predicted. After winning the Republican primary against conservative Rep.
Pat Toomey by a narrow margin of two percentage points, Specter faced the most challenging campaign of his political career against Hoeffel, a three-term congressperson and former Montgomery County commissioner. When Specter returns to the Senate this year, he is expected to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, giving him considerable power in the reformation of the Supreme Court.
According to the Associated Press, exit polls showed thatalmost a quarter of people who voted Kerry in the presidential race split their ticket and voted for Specter in the Senate race. In the 6th District congressional race, Republican incumbent Jim Gerlach was re-elected to a second term, winning by a narrow margin with 51 percent of the vote.
He beat Democrat Lois Murphy, who received 49 percent of the vote. Early results actually called the race for Murphy, before 24 of the precincts had reported results.
This was the first time Murphy had run for office and she made a big splash onto the national scene as one of only four congressional candidates endorsed by MoveOn. org. However, Murphy has been a long time politicalinsider, running Gov. Ed Rendell’s campaign in 2002.
The 6th District is composed of Chester, Montgomery, and Berks Counties and one precinct in Lehigh County. While it is usually predominately Republican, early results favored Democrats due to high voter turnout and registration this year. In the 156th District, Republican Elinor Z. Taylor returns to congress for her 14th consecutive term, winning against Democratic challenger Barbara McIlvane Smith with 55 percent of the vote. McIlvane Smith currently serves as vice president of the West Chester Borough Council.
Decreasing property taxes was the key issue for both candidates’ campaigns, although they have different strategies for the tax reduction. Taylor proposed that the money would come from gambling revenues while McIlvane Smith proposed a new system where the state would dedicate a portion of an existing tax, like sales tax, to reducing property taxes. Republican incumbent Rep.
Curt Weldon was re-elected in the 7th District, winning against Democrat Paul Scoles from Haverford. Republican Arthur Hershey was re-elected by a comfortable margin of 20 percent against Democrat Nancy Cox in the 13th District and Republican Chris Ross was also re-elected, winning 62 percent of the vote in the 158th District. Republican incumbent Stephen Barrar soared past Democratic challenger Mike McGann in the 160th District, winning a fifth term by about 9,000 votes.
This election had the highest voter turnout since 1972, when former President Richard Nixon won re-election running against Democrat George McGovern. As a result, local polling places saw long lines, many of which stretched on hours after polling places officially closed at 8 p.m. Dueto the high turnout predicted in the state and throughout the country, polling places were prepared to stay open until every person in line by 8 p.m. had cast their vote. Chester County processed more than 26,000 new voter registrations this year.