Up next
Well, don’t look now, but there’s another election right around the corner.
Candidates for the 2017 Primary Election will be able to start circulating their nominating petitions on Feb. 14. That’s about 10 weeks from now, and it will be here before you know it.
Luckily, this election should not be anything like the bitter and hotly-contested 2016 races.
The airwaves won’t be filled with mud-slinging, hateful negative ads and you won’t be bombarded with automated calls from candidates seeking your vote. Your mailbox also won’t be overflowing with dubious political mailers.
Overall, this is expected to be a very quiet election. There will be several statewide races for seats on the Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth courts. However, those races never generate the same type of heat and passion as national contests for the presidency and the U.S. Senate.
There will also be some county row offices on the ballot, but in all likelihood they won’t face the same intense interest as the elections for county commissioner, which won’t be held until 2019.
The main focus of this election will be local races. There will be a number of mayoral elections on the ballot, including Brownsville, Connellsville, Carmichaels and Monessen. One supervisor in every township will be up for re-election along with half the members of every borough and city council. Half the seats of every school board will also be up for grabs. In addition, there will be a number of elections for magisterial district judge, tax collector and constable.
However, this will all be a prelude to the 2018 elections, which could come near the interest and excitement of the 2016 races.
The elections that year will feature races for governor and U.S. Senate, as Democrats Tom Wolf and Bob Casey will try to defend their respective seats against Republican challengers. In fact, it’s possible both Wolf and Casey could even face competition in the Democratic Party primaries that year.
Wolf and Casey each won their last elections by about 10 percentage points but there are plenty of indications that both could face much stronger opposition this time around.
It will be interesting to see how local voters respond to their candidacies, especially in light of Donald Trump’s recent outstanding showing in Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties. Trump thumped Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in all four counties, doing particularly well in Fayette County where he won by an almost 2-1 margin.
Both Wolf and Casey won Fayette County in their last campaigns. Wolf also won a narrow victory in Greene County and lost by a slim margin in Washington County. He was defeated overwhelmingly in Westmoreland County.
Casey came close to winning in Greene and Washington counties but also lost by a wide margin in Westmoreland County.
Both Wolf and Casey will have to be careful to maintain at least some level of support among local voters. They can ill afford to lose by such big numbers as Clinton did this past November.
It remains to be seen if Wolf and Casey can or will make successful appeals to voters in this area. The larger question will be if Trump’s huge victory was an aberration or just a sign of things to come.