Republican voters, in a clear show of support for their party's endorsement process, nominated the entire slate of nine GOP-backed candidates in Tuesday's primary contests for commissioner, judge and register of wills.
They chose Scott Martin and Dennis Stuckey for county commissioner, rejecting their high-profile challengers, former city Mayor Charlie Smithgall and East Hempfield businesswoman and Supervisor Heidi Wheaton.
And in the crowded race for county judge, Republican voters nominated the entire party-endorsed team: Donald R. Totaro, Jeffrey J. Reich, Margaret C. Miller, Howard F. Knisely, Christopher A. Hackman and Jeffery D. Wright.
"That, ladies and gentlemen, is a clean sweep," GOP Chairman David M. Dumeyer said to thunderous applause at a victory rally at the Farm and Home Center in Manheim Township Tuesday night.
Political observers said the primary returns clearly illustrate that the party endorsement and the process by which it is granted are legitimate, despite the sharp criticism of them by the Wheaton campaign.
"I think the results show that the endorsements mean something, that they are valuable and they are respected by Republican voters in Lancaster County," said former county commissioner Terry L. Kauffman.
Said G. Terry Madonna, a Franklin & Marshall College political analyst: "In most elections the endorsement matters. We tend to focus on the exceptions, the Jim Hubers and the Paul Thibaults. But we don't focus on how often the party delivers."
Also on Tuesday, Lancaster County voters — by an average margin of more than 2 to 1 across all 16 public school districts — rejected the Act 1 plan to shift more of the cost of local schools from property taxes to local income taxes.
Republican voters in Lancaster City decided a contest for City Council and magisterial district judge. In other parts of the county, they nominated candidates for borough council and township supervisor.
Only 20.2 percent, or about 61,000 of the county's 301,243 registered voters, went to the polls here — a slightly lower turnout than the 21 percent who voted in the last municipal primary that featured a commissioners race, in 2003.
Of eligible voters — the 351,630 county residents who are age 18 or older — only 17.3 percent voted Tuesday.
Mary Stehman, the county's top elections official, said there were no significant problems with the voting machines.
"We had some minor things, but we had people in the field we could dispatch to correct them," she said. "No one had to wait."
e top vote-getter in the four-way GOP race for commissioner. He finished nearly 2,300 votes ahead of the second-place finisher, Stuckey.
The race for the second nomination ended in dramatic fashion, with Stuckey edging Smithgall by a mere 460 votes out of 80,389 cast in the race, giving the county controller a margin of victory of less than a single percentage point.
"I know when I put my faith in the party system, in the endorsement, I knew that we would win. I didn't think it'd be that close, but I knew we'd win," Stuckey said.
The unofficial results are:
Martin 24,060
Stuckey 21,777
Smithgall 21,317
Wheaton 13,235
Andrew Heath, the county GOP's executive director, said Wheaton's comparison of the endorsement process to that of the Soviet Politburo's in April backfired on her. She finished last in the race, with less than 17 percent of the vote.
"Because of her attack, the false allegation, that gave us the microphone to go out and explain to the voters exactly what we did," he said. "It also invigorated our committee people. To get slammed in the press and in the debates, it just really got them invigorated. It definitely backfired on her."
Said Madonna: "Typically, low turnout elections are what we used to call committeemen elections, or party elections, where it typically means people who are party activists, party loyalists, party faithful, turn out. To some extent that's what we saw yesterday."
And instead of being about issues, the race turned into a vote on Wheaton's personality.
"The election for commissioner got highly polarized over her candidacy. The net effect was the debate segued away from traditional issues to personalities," Madonna said. "The beauty for the party organization was that they didn't have to defend an incumbent. Without an incumbent, these two did not have to defend the convention center, Conestoga View or the fiscal management of the courthouse. They had free reign."
Martin and Stuckey will face Democrats Molly Henderson, an incumbent, and Craig Lehman, the Lancaster City controller and a budget analyst for the state House. They were unopposed Tuesday.
The unofficial results are:
Lehman 9,685
Henderson 6,459
Jere Swarr, a Rapho Township supervisor and businessman, has said he intends to run as well, as an independent.
In the Republican judicial primary, all six of the GOP-endorsed judicial candidates won nomination. Totaro, the county's district attorney, was the only judicial candidate among a field of 15 to win nominations in both the Republican and Democratic primaries.
All the candidates had cross-filed, which allowed them to run in their own party's primary and in another party's primary. There are 11 nominees for six seats on the Court of Common Pleas.
Four judges — Paul K. Allison, Wayne G. Hummer, Michael Georgelis and Michael Perezous — are retiring at the end of this year, and two new seats have been created by the state Legislature, increasing the number of Lancaster County judges to 15.
In the Republican primary, the unofficial results are:
Totaro 30,136
Reich 21,726
Miller 21,487
Knisely 19,679
Hackman 19,421
Wright 19,408
John P. Stengel 16,592
Heidi F. Eakin 15,418
Samuel M. Mecum 9,895
Lucy Longo 9,728
Kevin C. Allen 6,909
Steve Cody 6,413
Katherine B. Kravitz 5,950
William W. Campbell 5,515
Gerry Robinson 4,926
In the Democratic primary, the results are:
Mecum 6,809
Kravitz 6,227
Cody 5,884
Eakin 4,362
Longo 4,183
Totaro 4,075
Stengel 3,909
Miller 3,391
Robinson 1,796
Allen 1,683
Hackman 1,670
Knisely 1,662
Reich 1,478
Campbell 1,473
Wright 1,457
Lancaster County voters, by an average margin of more than 2 to 1 across all 16 public school districts, voted against the Act 1 referendum, which would have shifted more of the cost of local schools from property taxes to local income taxes.
More than 67 percent of the 55,585 voters who cast ballots on the tax-shift plan rejected the higher earned income taxes offered in exchange for a property-tax rebate of the same amount for each owner-occupied house in the district.
The biggest beneficiaries would have been low-income homeowners, such as senior citizens on fixed incomes. At the other end of the spectrum, renters would have paid higher income taxes without any offsetting reduction in property taxes.
The referendums were mandated by a 2006 state law that legalized slot-machine gambling. The expanded gambling is expected to generate as much as $1 billion a year for property-tax cuts, but that money is not expected to become available before next year.
Of the seven courthouse row offices up for election this year, only one — register of wills — saw a contest in the primary. In that race, the GOP's endorsed candidate, Mary Ann Gerber, beat Jay R. Toms decisively for the Republican nomination.
The unofficial results are:
Gerber 28,269
Toms 10,156
Gerber, who is endorsed by the GOP, is unopposed in November.
"I am speechless," she said in an acceptance speech Tuesday night. "Anyone looking at those numbers has to realize that the party endorsement means a lot."
For county district attorney, Craig W. Stedman was unopposed in the Republican primary and, because there is no Democrat running, will face no opposition and be elected in November.
For county coroner, Dr. Stephen G. Diamantoni was unopposed in the GOP primary, and David E. Rittenhouse faced no opposition in the Democratic primary. They will face each other in November.
For county sheriff, incumbent Terry A. Bergman was unopposed in the GOP primary and Luis A. Rodriguez faced no opposition on the Democratic side. They will face off in the fall election.
For the remaining three row offices, three Republicans had no opposition in Tuesday's primary and also face no race in November and will be elected. They are Ryan P. Aument for clerk of courts, Randall O. Wenger for prothonotary and Craig A. Ebersole for treasurer.
In the city, Republican voters decided a four-way race for three council nominations. Party-backed candidates Kathleen Harrison and Brian Reynolds, along with unendorsed candidate R.B. Campbell, were chosen by voters to represent the GOP in the city elections in November. Jack O'Shea, the third GOP-endorsed candidate, failed to win nomination.
The unofficial results are:
Harrison 989
Reynolds 930
Campbell 928
O'Shea 917
In Mount Joy Township, voters narrowly voted against creating a commission to study home rule. And voters in Brecknock Township, in rural northeast Lancaster County, narrowly approved a measure allowing their local government to issue licenses for groups that want to conduct small games of chance such as bingo.
In the only race for magisterial district judge, Republicans in northeast Lancaster City nominated Michael Branner in a four-way contest in which every candidate cross-filed. Democrats nominated Janice Jimenez.
The unofficial Republican results are:
Michael Branner 332
Jack M. Tracy 101
Janice Jimenez 85
Jason S. Fikkert 53
The unofficial Democratic results are:
Jimenez 247
Branner 164
Tracy 58
Fikkert 15
In the Manheim area, Tom Fee was unopposed in both party primaries for a magisterial district judge seat.
(Staff writer Anya Litvak contributed to this report.)CONTACT US:
tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021
