By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com
The state Republican Party decided to endorse in all three of this year’s statewide races during its winter meeting Saturday morning.
The party’s committee members will now decide to formally support a candidate in the race for governor, U.S. Senate, and lieutenant governor.
That almost certainly means Attorney General Tom Corbett will receive the gubernatorial endorsement and former Congressman Pat Toomey will receive the Senate endorsement, over state Rep. Sam Rohrer and activist Peg Luksik, respectively.
Toomey and Corbett have been certain to win the party endorsement for months, but the same could not be said for any of the lieutenant governor candidates. An array of candidates are running for the GOP’s lieutenant governor nomination, including Bucks County Commissioner Jim Cawley, political commentator Joe Watkins, former auditor general candidate Chet Beiler, and Dauphin County Commissioner Nick DiFrancesco.
Cawley is the favorite for the nomination. The vote to endorse for the position was 213 in favor, 135 against.
The state party began its endorsement meeting with a roll call vote to decide whether the members would endorse in each GOP primary. Each of the 348 committee members in attendance participated in a roll call vote, voting “yes” or “no” on the question of whether the party should endorse in the Senate, governor and lieutenant governor’s race.
Some committee members pushed for an open primary in all three races, and several of them stood outside the doors of the endorsement meeting holding signs that read, among others, “End machine politics.” A portion of the members voted to endorse in the governor’s and U.S. Senate race, but voted for an open primary in the lieutenant governor’s race.
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