An intense last-minute push by establishment Democrats and environmentalists to shore up their preferred Senate Democratic nominee paid off in Pennsylvania last night, as former White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Katie McGinty won the right to take on Republican Sen.
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McGinty won thanks to an all-out effort from Democratic Party establishment – which considers Sestak a general election liability – to carry her across the finish line, including roughly $2 million in ads from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and endorsements from President Obama and Vice President Biden.
A woman also has a chance to pick up a seat for Democrats in an unexpected place: Arizona, where Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick has mounted a strong challenge to veteran GOP Sen.
“Democrats have thrown in their lot with a far left machine politician who has an ethics rap sheet a mile long”, said Toomey for Senate spokesman Ted Kwong.
“During the course of this Democratic primary both of the leading candidates have shown extreme liberal positions across the board”, said Toomey to a crowded room of supporters in a Pittsburgh hotel.
The same was true of the race in Maryland, where Van Hollen triumphed over the outsider Edwards despite years as a House Democratic leader.
Democrats must win five seats to wrest back the Senate.
McGinty will now square off against Toomey, who faces a tough reelection in the Democratic-leaning state that Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
McGinty, past state environmental secretary and Gov. Tom Wolf’s former chief of staff, bested three competitors, taking the race by a double-digit margin over second-place finisher Joe Sestak.McGinty could not immediately be reached Tuesday night.Her win – particularly its size – comes in stark contrast to statewide polls that had shown Sestak with a large, although shrinking, lead over McGinty.
“Not at all”, said Rep.
“I think that your primary campaign was over the top”.
Republicans are eager to capitalize. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire; Rep. Tammy Duckworth, who is challenging Republican Sen. “We’re not shedding any tears about the fact that it’s been a rough-and-tumble primary”.
More and more, it seems like Senate Democrats’ good fortunes are also tied to the GOP presidential front-runner’s fortunes. Arlen Specter, then was asked to step aside when Specter switched parties to the delight of Democratic Party leaders. Luckily for Democrats, she might be running against the party of Trump.
And the intrigue is not limited to the major races.
Yet the two sides never saw eye-to-eye, and Sestak took the unusual but headline-grabbing move of walking 422 miles across the state. The state’s GOP primary is something of a beauty contest, since only 17 of 71 delegates are promised to the statewide victor and 54 others three elected in each of 18 congressional districts are essentially free agents and can vote for whomever they want at the convention, under state party rules. He did well in Berks County, beating McGinty by more than 1,000 votes.Sestak was followed by Braddock Mayor John Fetterman with 19.4 percent of the vote and Joseph Vodvarka with 5.6 percent.Vodvarka, an Allegheny County business owner, had been thrown off the ballot in March after Sestak challenged the validity of some signatures on Vodvarka’s petition.
Sestak has been unsparing in his criticism of the party elite.
“I couldn’t be happier and more proud of the campaign we’ve run”, Fetterman said.
I caught Sestak outside, among the rowhouses on 22nd St., and asked how the election looked to him. He says “there’s a moral obligation, at least on the first round (of convention balloting), to support the person who won”.
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She said she favors making college costs and technical training affordable and available to anyone willing to work hard without burdening families and students with tens of thousands in debt.
