Schuylkill-Carbon voters favor GOP candidates

Voters in Schuylkill and Carbon counties on Tuesday went against the majority of the state in balloting for the two top spots on the statewide ballot — Pennsylvania governor and U.S. senator — favoring the Republican candidates who both sustained huge setbacks to the Democratic incumbents.

While Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey were landslide winners across the state, that was not the case in Schuylkill and Carbon, where the voters favored their opponents, Scott Wagner and Lou Barletta, respectively.

With 99.3 percent of the state’s ballots recorded, Gov. Wolf defeated Wagner by 818,132 votes — 2,799,159 to 1,981,027. In the Senate race, Casey trounced Barletta by 623,706 votes — 2,696,493 to 2,072,787.

But in Schuylkill and Carbon, counties that have Republican registration leads, the numbers were different.

The Schuylkill tabulations showed Wagner winning there, 26,635 to 21,172, and Barletta bettering Casey, 30,444 to 17,682.

The Carbon voters gave Wagner a 12,199 to 9,385 win over the governor, while they also favored Barletta, 13,211 to 8,488.

Meanwhile, in the race for the two-year term in the new 9th Congressional District, Republican Dan Meuser was the winner over Democrat Denny Wolff, and the Schuylkill and Carbon voters had a say in that outcome, both favoring the victor.

Overall, Meuser won by 48,443 votes — 146,675 to 98,232. In Schuylkill, he prevailed 29,939 to 18,501, while Carbon gave the Republican a win by a margin of 13,141 to 8,648.

In addition to Schuylkill and Carbon counties, the 9th district includes Lebanon and Columbia counties, as well as parts of Luzerne, Montour and Northumberland counties.

There were four state representative races in the Schuylkill-Carbon region Tuesday, with only one of those being a contested race. State Rep. Doyle Heffley, a Republican, was a landslide winner over Democrat Kara Scott in that race — which includes all of Carbon County except Summit Hill Borough. He won by 7,150 votes — 14,033 to 6,853.

In the three other state representative races, incumbents Jerry Knowles and Michael G. Tobash and Democrat Neal P. Goodman were all unopposed.

Knowles holds the seat in the 124th Legislative District and represents Summit Hill in Carbon County; the townships of East Brunswick, East Union, Kline, North Union, Rush, Schuylkill, Union, Walker, West Brunswick and West Penn and the boroughs of Coaldale, Deer Lake, McAdoo, New Ringgold, Orwigsburg, Port Clinton, Ringtown and Tamaqua in Schuylkill County; and the townships of Albany, Greenwich, Perry, Tilden and Windsor and the boroughs of Hamburg, Lenhartsville and Shoemakersville in Berks County.

He received 17,745 complimentary votes, including 11,424 in Schuylkill County and 717 in Summit Hill.

Goodman received 12,016 token votes in the 123rd District, which includes mainly the districts in northern Schuylkill and Tobash garnered 14,901 “comps” in the 125th District that includes the western part of Schuylkill.

The only other name on the Carbon ballot Tuesday was that of Sen. John Yudichak, a Democrat in the 14th Senatorial District who was unopposed. He collected 11,527 votes in Carbon, which went toward his overall complimentary vote total of 51,135.

The 14th District includes all of Carbon County and parts of Luzerne County, including the cities of Hazleton, Nanticoke, Pittston and Wilkes-Barre; the townships of Bear Creek, Buck, Fairview, Foster, Hanover, Hazle, Jenkins, Newport, Plains, Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre; and the boroughs of Ashley, Bear Creek Village, Edwardsville, Exeter, Freeland, Hughestown, Jeddo, Laflin, Larksville, Laurel Run, Luzerne, Plymouth, Sugar Notch, Swoyersville, Warrior Run, West Hazleton, West Pittston, West Wyoming, White Haven, Wyoming and Yatesville.