Wealthy businessman Steve Welch had already declared his candidacy for an open seat in the Seventh Congressional District when Republican leaders backed another man early in the fall.

Rather than buck the party, Welch, 33, decided in September to run for a seat in the neighboring Sixth District, where GOP leaders were scrambling for a candidate after the four-term Republican incumbent decided to run for governor.

Several Republican leaders encouraged Welch to switch, including the state party chairman and head of the Chester County GOP, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to candidly discuss internal party deliberations.

The National Republican Congressional Committee even named Welch to its Young Guns program for candidates who showed promise, though the national party did not publicly promise to back him.

Welch showed his commitment to the district by buying a house there and moving his family in December.

But in early January, the party again turned its back on Welch when U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach gave up his bid for governor and returned to the Sixth District race. The NRCC quickly threw its support behind Gerlach.

After uprooting his family and dropping more than half a million of his own money to fund a run for the House only to be dropped – twice – by the party, did Welch feel jilted?

“I am not angry,” he said in an interview. “What I’m frustrated with is what’s happening in Washington.” Welch might not win the party’s formal support, but he said he’d run anyway.

He was not the only candidate to put large amounts of personal money into the race, thinking Gerlach would not run. Seeking the Democratic nomination, Doug Pike, a former Inquirer editorial writer from Chester County, pumped $962,000 last year into his campaign.

Strategists from both parties could not recall a case with as many twists and turns as Welch’s in the districts, which contain parts of the western suburbs.

“The local Republican Party has bounced him around like a ping-pong ball,” said John Kennedy, associate professor of political science at West Chester University.

Read the full Inquirer article here

Tags: Doug Pike, Jim Gerlach, Steve Welch

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