Posted on 01/07/2016 11:09:15 AM PST by Vigilanteman
A special election will be held March 15 to fill the remainder of the term of former state Rep. Tim Krieger. Krieger, a four-term Republican from Delmont resigned last month after being sworn in as a Westmoreland County judge. His terms runs to the end of the year.
Krieger's 57th District seat includes Greensburg, South Greensburg, Southwest Greensburg, Youngwood, part of Hempfield and Salem townships and Delmont.
Officials from Westmoreland County's Democratic and a Republican committees will nominate candidates to run in the special election.
Voters will return to polls on April 26 for a primary election when candidates will be nominated to run for a full two-year term.
Tim Krieger won the 57th district in the 2008 year of ObaMao and has increased his winning margin ever since. He won in 2014 without any Democrat opposition, despite the fact that Democrats have always held this seat since it was created in the 1960s until Krieger came along.
His election to the judge position, a 10 year office, was by a very narrow margin and only won because the voters in his district gave him a wide margin to overcome the leftard enclaves in our county.
Still, if the Democrats and GOPe (but I repeat myself) have set an odd special election date because they see an opportunity to replace one of the most solid conservative voices in the Pennsylvania legislature with one of their own.
If they can pull it off, you can be certain it will be widely trumpeted and make a lot of wavering GOP members cave in to raising taxes for Commie Governor Tom Wolf.
It will be a good indicator if voters are sick of the obama/clinton/wolf machine...
The fact of the matter is that lots of RINO squishes tried and failed to win the district for roughly 50 years before Krieger came along. Even more remarkable is that Krieger is from a relatively minor town (Delmont) on the edge of the district and was relatively unknown before he came out of nowhere to campaign and win it in 2008.
He knocked on my door that summer and we immediately connected. He asked me to put up a yard sign and I agreed with the remark that "I always did have a soft spot for Don Quixote." Krieger told me then that he was going to win . . . and he did.
As far as I can tell, that area is trending back to its Republican roots. Westmoreland, especially, went for Willard (who didn’t exactly have working class appeal) by 24% in 2012.
Westmoreland County has been trending Dem in recent years.
I’d feel better about this if Wolf had already gotten his tax hikes and the outrage was in full swing.
Westmoreland County (and, in general, Western PA) is now solidly Republican; I doubt that the Democrats will come within 10% of a halfway decent Republican in that district. It’s those suburban Philly districts that I’m worried about.
I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet that the ‘RAT governor was the one who made the decision to hold a special election rather than waiting until April 26.
Yeah, Pittsburgh is still a political headcase, as is Philly. But most of the Pittsburgh suburbs—even the blue-collar ones—are voting Republican, as are the Rust Belt counties where pro-life and pro-gun, but very economically liberal, Democrats used to win every election.
That describes most of my neighbors....socially conservative, but economically liberal. Thus they’d always vote for old-school machine Democrats who would use the power of the state on behalf of “Da Workin’ Man”.
A Left-Coast brie-eating bicycle and Uber freak like Peduto is something new around here.
Off time election for a state district seat? I wouldn’t read anything at all into any outcome of such an election... low turnout, low interest.... will boil down to which party has the better ground game to get anyone to show up to vote at all.
I’m guessing you are probably right. Seriously, what is a six week vacancy in a single legislative seat compared to the cost of a special election. We recently returned the county commission to a Democrat majority, so that may have something to do with it as well.
I don’t know, the teachers union rank and file sure can’t be all enamored with Wolf at the moment... they put him in because they were mad at Corbett, but its January and they are still teaching without books because of Wolf’s insanity on the budget... So, we shall see.
I am just saying an off year, oddball election, isn’t an indicator of anything, other than who could motivate folks to show up, I really wouldn’t write anything bigger into it than that.
The social lib bobos are really becoming a problem in the Delaware Valley. I’m surprised Fitzpatrick has made it this far being Pro-life.
So, of course, Fitzpatrick had to retire, thus making it that much harder to have a pro-life Representative in PA-08. I was hoping that he’d hang around at least through 2022 so that he could beat the virulently pro-abortion Charlie Dent when the Lehigh Valley and Bucks County CDs are combined in redistricting (after the Dem areas in Allentown and Bethlehem are placed in the heavily Dem PA-16 held by Matt Cartwright and heavily Dem Lower Bucks precincts are placed in the safely Democrat PA-13 held by Brendan Boyle).
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