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Pennsylvania mail ballots submitted without a date on the envelope last year should be counted, a federal appeals court said Friday, a ruling that could mean thousands more votes get counted in elections moving forward — starting with this past Tuesday’s primary. The ruling will also almost certainly reignite the smoldering political fight over undated mail ballots; create new questions and pressure for county elections officials as they continue to count votes from this week’s primary; and create another potential opening for county-by-county legal challenges as the Senate Republican primary heads toward a likely recount.

With less than two weeks before the primary election, State Sen. Doug Mastriano was leading in the polls, and some of the candidates and their aides were holding out hope Trump would use the rally to endorse a rival who could topple the front-runner. But behind the scenes, some of the most influential players in Pennsylvania Republican politics were hatching a plan of their own to stop Mastriano, who they saw as a potential liability in a general election. That afternoon, Andy Reilly, a Republican National Committee member, sent an email to associates of the leading candidates. It included a...

With Pennsylvania’s county election administrators continuing to chew through mail-in and absentee ballots Thursday, the front-runners in the nearly deadlocked Republican U.S. Senate primary offered both argued that their paths to victory remained wide open. That case seemed a little bit easier for Dr. Mehmet Oz’s team Thursday night, as the cardiac surgeon-turned-daytime television superstar still held a 1,123 vote lead over former Wall Street executive David McCormick. As of presstime for this story, that broke down as follows: Oz, 417,719, or 31.2 percent; McCormick 416,596, or 31.1 percent. That’s with an estimated 98.6 percent of the vote in, according...

The lay of the land in Pennsylvania’s excruciating Republican U.S. Senate primary changed little Wednesday as elections officials churned through the biggest chunk of uncounted ballots. Dr. Mehmet Oz’s lead over former Wall Street executive David McCormick had shrunk some, to 1,242 votes as of 9 p.m. That was cut in half from Oz’s 2,594 vote lead as of 11 a.m. But shrinking faster was the stack of on-time but uncounted mail-in ballots. Based on the Department of State’s real-time tallies, the total mail-in vote count had grown by about 20,500 through the day Wednesday. That means, at most, there...

YORK COUNTY, Pa. — Two multi-decade Republican lawmakers in York County will not be up for re-election in the fall, after losing their primary races to challengers. In Windsor Township, Wendy Fink beat State Rep. Stan Saylor (R-York), who has been in office nearly 30 years. In Hellam Township, Joe D’Orsie beat State Rep. Keith Gillespie (R-York), who has been in office nearly 20 years. “Something happens after a couple of decades after you're in political office. After talking to people, I think the fact that I am a rookie kind of appeals to them,” D’Orsie said while making campaign...

FANNETTSBURG, Pennsylvania -- The first time I accidentally stumbled onto the cracked Back Road street sign in this Franklin County unincorporated town years ago, while covering the 2012 presidential race between then-President Barack Obama and Sen. Mitt Romney, I knew I had to turn onto it even though I had no idea where it led. It was impulsive but proved helpful in taking my reporting in a different direction, to understand what voters were thinking. It helped me understand, with all of the potential of flipping this state red, why voters were using their energy and dissatisfaction with Obama to...

Salena’s Zito’s latest analysis for the Washington Examiner (“The conservative populist coalition has grown in Pennsylvania. What that means going forward is important”) correctly describes the trend that has been ongoing in the Keystone State for the past decade. What it misses, though -- and it’s a big miss -- is that Democrats are at it again in the commonwealth’s 2022 midterms elections. They’re tilting the playing field in their favor. This autumn, the “No Questions” mail-in balloting returns have the potential to blunt a favorable GOP trend with a deluge of Democrat ginned up mail-ins, which will impact critical...

MEYERSDALE, Pennsylvania — Unless either Dr. Mehmet Oz or David McCormick pulls out a miracle between today and Tuesday evening, just over 20% of the Republican primary electorate is going to nominate Kathy Barnette for U.S. Senate. This would mark the first time in modern Pennsylvania Republican primary history that such a complete unknown wins with no statewide infrastructure to support her candidacy, zero money, and little scrutiny. If she succeeds, she will have upended a race between two capable candidates who, up until a week ago, seemed to be locked in a two-man contest. This would also mark the...

Barnette, in her bio on her webpage, says: "Appearing regularly on national TV and radio, Kathy Barnette is a veteran, former adjunct professor of corporate finance, sought-after conference speaker, and conservative political commentator. Next up — Kathy is taking on Washington D.C. and is running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania." The bio also reads: "Kathy served her country proudly for 10 years in the Armed Forces Reserves where she was accepted into Officer Candidacy School. She worked with two major financial firms in corporate America and sat on the board of a pregnancy crisis center for five years." The...

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says he is certain one thing won't happen before the Republican gubernatorial primary May 24: an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. After Trump called him "a turncoat, a coward, and a complete and total disaster" in front of a crowd of supporters at a rally in Commerce, Georgia, last Saturday, Kemp is probably not wrong. And he said he is fine with that. "I've never said a bad word about President Trump. And I don't plan on doing so. I appreciate what he did for our state," Kemp told me in an interview. Kemp...

JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania -- When Ken Miller changed his party registration from Democrat to Republican in September 2020, he said he wasn't doing it for Donald Trump. He had not voted for Trump nor Hillary Clinton in 2016. Rather, he said, he was doing it for himself and his community after watching Democrats govern during the pandemic. "I am tired of what I am seeing," he said. Democrats appeared to ignore people like Miller, viewing his vote as replaceable by someone in their theoretical ascendant Democratic coalition of young people, women, intellectuals and nonwhite voters. But the thinkers in Washington may...

RICHLAND, Pennsylvania — Jackie Kulback has a very detailed list of criteria that the county party she chairs, the Cambria County Republican Committee, requires to endorse candidates in next month's U.S. Senate primary contest. “There are some basic things," she said, "such as, have they ever been to Cambria County and talked to the voters? Do their values line up with our values? Which is very important because we are a very pro-life county. Can they raise money? Can they do the job? And finally, can they actually get elected in a general election?” Kulback, who has worked tirelessly over...

INDEPENDENCE, Missouri — The half-circle of 13 chairs that framed the statue of President Harry Truman in the heart of the historic Independence Square this past fall was placed there in the days after 13 American soldiers were killed in the attack on the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in late August. The loss of these brave service members marked the beginning of an awakening. Many people stepped outside the comfort of their political beliefs and began to question everything coming out of the government. Few national journalists noticed it at its inception because few national journalists leave their desks or...

Source: Photo/Salena ZitoOf the four restaurants Rick McQuaide owns across several counties in Western Pennsylvania, one is barely making a profit, two are losing money and the fourth has been "temporarily" closed for far longer than he ever anticipated. The 58-year-old small businessman from nearby Cambria County has one word for why he finds himself in this position -- and it isn't the pandemic. "It is inflation," he said flatly. McQuaide -- whose family has also been in the trucking and logistics industry for 70 years -- said what frustrates him is the reaction coming from the White House and...

If resident Joe Biden's disorderly and lethal Afghanistan withdrawal was the moment that fractured voters' regard for him, then his vicious Atlanta speech last week may be the moment that defines his presidency. Speaking Tuesday at Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, Biden uttered venomous, brutal accusations lacking factual basis. His shouting-in-the-wind delivery was inexplicable, and his decision to lash out at members of his own party -- Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema -- appears to have only strengthened their resolve not to give in to his demands. Biden called those who disagree with his political views on legislation...

Source: Photo/Salena Zito>TRAFFORD, Pennsylvania -- For the first couple of weeks in December, a tiny, bare tulip tree, common in Appalachia, grows on the trail that hugs Turtle Creek and the eye of passersby. Decorated with cheerful homemade Christmas ornaments, it brought smiles to the faces of cyclists, runners and walkers who saw it every day. Some days, people would pull an ornament from their jacket pocket and add it while on their daily stride. On other days, one might see a parent pushing a stroller or with a child on their bicycle stop and look at the delightful little...

OLD TOWN, Maryland -- This ancient colonial town nestled along the north branch of the Potomac River could not be more different from the upscale suburbs of Chevy Chase located much closer to the tidal portion. While both are in the same state, this town of 86 people is more culturally connected to the people and places in West Virginia and Pennsylvania close to this region than the D.C. suburb located in the center of wealth and power in this country. Yet they do share one recently developing commonality that has gone under the radar of the national press that...

Brian Murray knows just how fierce an opponent Arizona's Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can be. The Republican strategist saw his candidate lose to Democrat Sinema in their 2012 race for the House. Calling the experience "unpleasant," Murray admits his candidate, Vernon Parker, was flawed, but "flawed candidates win all of the time. Kyrsten, however, was an absolute machine." Sinema, along with fellow centrist Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has recently become the epicenter of American politics largely because she insists on siding with the interests of her constituents instead of the demands of her party. Over the past few...

If voters here back Youngkin, it won't be because they woke up and decided that they love Republicans again. It will be because the Democrats have pissed them off. Most of their answers will begin in 2020, when their children were quarantined at home at the onset of the pandemic and they realized the amount of control and power school boards have over what their children learn. To win, McAuliffe has to change the dynamic. He's got two ways to do it. One requires introducing something that is truly disqualifying for Youngkin. That hasn't worked, and so the other is...

John F. Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said only months ago that those losing fossil fuel jobs in coal and hydraulic fracturing will find they have a better choice in jobs in either the solar industry or as wind turbine technicians. That was then. Now, a wind blade manufacturing plant located in Aberdeen, South Dakota has announced it is shutting its doors permanently in less than two months. The disappearance of Molded Fiber Glass will displace over three hundred workers and their families. It marks another major loss of energy jobs in the state following President Joe Biden's...