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Schwank Wins, Dems Get Their Mojo Back

By Keegan Gibson, Managing Editor

Democrat Judy Schwank handed Pennsylvania Republicans their first big defeat since 2008, earning a comfortable victory by a margin of 57.6 percent to 42.3 percent over Republican Larry Medaglia.

She will now be sworn in to continue the term of the late State Senator Mike O’Pake in the Reading-based 11th Senate district.

PoliticsPA was the first media outlet to call the race for Schwank, a few minutes after 9pm. We reported that she was the front runner in December, 2010.

A small army of volunteers filled two separate buildings managed by Schwank’s campaign yesterday, as nearly 100 volunteers made phone calls to, and knocked on the doors of, nearly 20,000 voters yesterday alone.

Activists from Berks County, the Philadelphia area, the Lehigh Valley, Harrisburg and elsewhere flooded Schwank headquarters. They brought the effort and enthusiasm that characterized Democrats’s intense effort in 2008, but seemed unable to find in 2010.

“I feel like we mobilized an army to make this happen,” Schwank said during her victory speech. “It’s so incredible. I kind of have to pinch myself to believe it.”

“This was a group effort. Everywhere I turned around somebody came to help,” she said. “We had Democrats, Republicans and independents working on this campaign. It really does mean we can come together and get things done for this county.”

From the outset of this process, Democrats have called Schwank the perfect candidate, who Democratic State Senate Campaign Committee Chairman Daylin Leach called “the best candidate I’ve ever had.”

Indeed, Schwank’s resume seemed tailor made for the campaign. A former County Commissioner, Schwank is well-known and well-liked by most Berks County voters. Her background in agriculture allowed her to speak to the suburban and rural neighborhoods outside of the City of Reading. Her friendly charm created an image that was impossible to puncture with negative advertisements in a 10 week campaign.

That was borne out on Tuesday.  She carried this district by a total of 20,124 to Medaglia’s 14,794, a margin of 5,330, in a district that Joe Sestak and Dan Onorato each lost in 2010.

Republicans have said that the district was a difficult one, and that Medaglia outperformed past GOP contenders (for example, O’Pake’s 2008 opponent garnered 28.7 percent of the vote).

However, Republicans also invested more in the race than they have at any time in the recent past. As of the latest campaign finance reports, over $100,000 of Medaglia’s campaign funds came from Harrisburg sources. When the final reports come out in a few weeks, that figure is likely to be closer to $200,000. The state party paid for his mail pieces, and the PA Senate Republican Campaign Committee paid for his television advertisements.

As expected, Schwank did well in the City of Reading, where voter turnout met realistic expectations and reached about 10 percent by day’s end. Her real strength and the key to her wide victory was her performance in Reading’s suburbs.

The Republican path to victory went through Exeter, Cumru and Muhlenberg, where Medaglia needed to win by big margins in order to offset his anticipated deficit in the City. Schwank not only kept it close in those precincts, she won most of them. She even won Medaglia’s home precinct in West Reading.

Democrats statewide were quick to greet Schwank’s victory. Within a few minutes of her speech, the state party sent out a statement by party Chairman Jim Burn. He said, in part, “Today’s election was a referendum on Tom Corbett and his record. In this early test, Tom Corbett and his budget have been roundly rejected by voters.”

Democratic Party spokesman Mark Nicastre expanded on that theme.

“This election was a referendum on Tom Corbett, plain and simple,” he said. “Any attempt by the Republican Party to distance Tom Corbett from Larry Medaglia’s losing effort is a farce.

“This is an important victory. It shows that Tom Corbett is a liability and it shows that as Democrats continue to fight Corbett-led Republican efforts to attack the middle class, voters will support Democrats and policies that put the middle class first.”

Schwank agreed.

“There are certainly statewide implications to this. I think there was very much a concerted effort by both sides to take this seat,” she said. “Obviously Republicans put an awful lot of money into this campaign, and the Senate Democrats were certainly very supportive of my campaign.”

She said that Corbett’s budget proposal “definitely” played a role in her victory.

“Almost immediately the reaction was after he announced the budget that these education cuts were just unacceptable to people. They recognized that those cuts to K-12 would impact their school property taxes.”

Schwank says she’s ready to get to work and isn’t taking a day off to celebrate. She’s spending today cleaning up her campaign office and writing thank you letters.

“I’m overwhelmed. I’m so pleased and happy with the support that I got for this race,” Schwank said. “I think people sent a message that they wanted someone to carry on the legacy of Senator O’Pake and the kind of service that he provided the Berks County, and they chose me. So I’m very humbled by their outpouring of support and I’m ready to go to work for them.”

9 Responses

  1. Forcing others to pay for other people children’s education is wrong, cruel, and immoral. it is no different than theft. If you remove the property and other taxes, then people would be able to afford to pay for it. And, if you want vouchers, then let private individual, charities, and foundations pay for them. Public education causes education disparity, especially at the expense of the poor. This would not only improve education, but would save everyone money. The solution is easier than you think

  2. The Democrats were asleep in 2010.Just as Nutty Newt Gingrich,father of the modern GOP post 94 took the decent GOP of the past down,with Bush 2 its gravedigger;Medaglia,the set up, ‘party man’thought he could ride the Neoconservative wave with a negative Rush Limbaugh wanna-be campaign.He looks like a bully,and showed he was too.Well is one too.Thinking people of all parties woke up.And this lifelong maneuvering for political ascendancy was stopped.Now by exposing his uncharming inarticulate self to more people, he will loose his do-nothing 80.000 bucks cushy Rregister Of Wills post too!

  3. Hey, the Democrats got their people out — something they were wholly unable to do in 2010. I call that a win.

  4. Bottom line! Dems have a 20+ percentage registration advantage! A ham sandwich running as a dum-o-crat could could have won that race! Let the morons who voted for her in that district live with their own stupidity! How’re them property taxes working out for ya? Wait till she slips you her conconction of a graduated income tax to reduce the friggin taxes she raised on the whole of the county! Redner’s has a sale on KY… It’ll make it feel better!

  5. FACTS:

    PA GOP invested close to $200,000 on behalf of Medaglia.

    Berks County was a major success for PA GOP in 2010. PA GOP controls all but TWO state house seats in the County!

    Governor Tom Corbett and Lt. Governor Jim Cawley both made trips to Berks County on behalf of Larry Medaglia.

    The influx of state GOP money plus inserting Corbett and Cawley into a local senate race so soon after their inauguration showed the PA GOP thought they had a chance to steal Senate District-11. The gains made in the state house districts last year showed that SD-11 was a battleground! Yesterday’s results show otherwise! Gov. Corbett’s budget proposal played a HUGE role in this election. It was THE BIG NEWS in the state politically and Medaglia’s warm words for the Governor and his budget ideas did not resonate with Berks Countians!

  6. Big Win for democrats in a district that is dominated by DEMOCRATS. They couldn’t afford to lose this race, and still they couldn’t even get all the Deomocrats to vote Democrat. The republican candidate beat registration by 10 points plus. HARDLY A CONVINCING WIN!

  7. I normally give POliticsPA more credit when it comes to its political analysis but to somehow suggest that this is a BIG win for Democrats and it gets their “mojo back” reflects poorly on your political judgment. This was a tough race for the GOP from the start. The district is near 2:1 Democrat and the Dems nominated a very credible candidate. Any neutral observer could predict a Dem win two months ago. Yes, the GOP spent some money in an effort to make the race competitive but this is a Democratic seat. Period! You guys at PoliticPA need to keep it real.

  8. The fact that Democrats had to fight hard–and invest substanial resources–just to maintain control of a senate seat that they had held virutally uncontested for four decades is a strong indicator that Pennsylvania is far more Republican than it used to be.

  9. Dems claiming they are getting their mojo back in this race is like the Harlem globe trotters saying they have their mojo back when they beat the local jv squad. (meaning no disrespect to Medaglia who gave a good go of it in a terrible district for republicans.)

    They had to burn a ton of money in a heavily dem district. Money that won’t be easy to raise back when they have zero influence in Harrisburg. By the looks of it GOP candidate beat the registration by 7 points. That happens in a district with the normal partisan breakdown they are toast.

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