Spending down from primary
Multiple races that spent record earlier this year cut back for general election
Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / Seventh Ward poll worker Julia Burke and volunteer Adam Mathias setup voting booths at the Hollidaysburg Area Public Library on Monday afternoon.
Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / Seventh Ward poll worker Julia Burke (left) and volunteer Adam Mathias post a sign at the Hollidaysburg Area Public Library on Monday afternoon.
Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / Seventh Ward poll worker Julia Burke and volunteer Adam Mathias setup voting booths at the Hollidaysburg Area Public Library on Monday afternoon.
Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / Seventh Ward poll worker Julia Burke (left) and volunteer Adam Mathias post a sign at the Hollidaysburg Area Public Library on Monday afternoon.
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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- After a spring primary when Blair County judicial, county commissioner and school board candidates spent a record of about $300,000, spending toward today's election has been a lot less and more typical of when those offices are on the ballot.
Other than campaign signs and a few billboards, the local candidates in today's election have been attending forums, political events and using social media to influence voters.
Same goes for the political action committee opposed to President Judge Elizabeth Doyle's retention, which bought a full-page newspaper advertisement a month ago and a second one published Saturday.
"We're running on a shoestring budget," said Tyrone resident Rhonda Holland, president of Blair County Public Accountability, the political action committee seeking votes against Doyle's retention.
Blair County Republican Party Chairman Jim Foreman said Friday that the interest leading up to today's election has been with the statewide judicial seats.
"The spending there has been significant," Foreman said, especially by Supreme Court candidates Carolyn Carlucio, Republican, and Dan McCaffery, Democrat.
On Saturday, about 200 people signed up for a breakfast at The Casino at Lakemont Park, where the county Republicans hosted Carluccio along with Superior Court candidates Maria Battista and Harry F. Smail Jr. and Commonwealth Court candidate Megan Martin.
"Our county has less than 1 percent of the state's population, but every year for the last six years, we've been able to attract the top of the ticket here on the Saturday morning before Election Day," Foreman said. "And we get a good turnout."
Blair County remains predominantly Republican, with 47,417 registered to vote in today's election. The county also has 19,793 registered Democrats. An additional 9,590 residents are registered as independents or other political parties.
The Democrats also have statewide judicial candidates on the ballot: Daniel McCaffery for the Supreme Court, Jill Beck and Timika Lane for the Superior Court and Matt Wolf for the Commonwealth Court. Their social media sites show them actively campaigning in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and surrounding areas.
While county residents looking at today's ballot will see uncontested races for four row offices -- controller, treasurer, register/recorder and coroner -- the county Democratic party is seeking voter support for commissioner candidates Laura Burke, incumbent, and Carol Taylor.
"They are both incredibly strong candidates," Democratic Party Chairwoman Gillian Kratzer said. "Laura has shown herself to be competent, and when you talk to county workers, she has a solid reputation. Carol is somebody who is very gung-ho to make the county better. While she's new to county government, to some people that's appealing."
Burke and Taylor will be on the ballot with Republicans David Kessling and incumbent Amy Webster. Kessling topped the four-candidate ticket in the primary and kept on campaigning based on his social media postings through summer and fall.
Webster, who came in second in the primary, also survived a campaign against her winning a second term, organized by the John Galt Society political action committee.
The committee, composed of local residents led by Richard Latker of Hollidaysburg, sought to oust Webster for reasons that included failing to challenge what it called a botched reassessment and to represent the committee's position on the Second Amendment Sanctuary and a lack of transparency in spending toward broadband development.
While Blair County Public Accountability's most recent campaign finance report shows a $2,500 donation from the John Galt Society, both Latker and Holland told the Mirror that their committees aren't affiliated.
Latker said the local John Galt Society has dissolved and in doing so, made a $2,500 donation to Blair County Public Accountability from the last of its remaining money.
Holland said she formed Blair County Public Accountability after becoming dismayed with Doyle for a stay-in-place order interfering with child custody agreements during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the judge revised that order after the governor's office released clarifying information, Holland said Doyle's initial action "brought a lot of unnecessary heartache to numerous families."
In response, Doyle told the Mirror she had both negative and positive feedback about her order requiring children to remain in the household of the parent where they were when the governor's order was issued.
"Many parents were upset," the judge said. "But many parents wrote in saying that they approved of the order, because they believed it kept their children safe."
Holland said her committee has support from others unhappy with Doyle's rulings, including law enforcement officers who criticized her bail-related decisions. The committee's advertisements reference actions in 2020 and 2021 during COVID-19 pandemic, when there was concern of the virus spreading quickly through the county's crowded prison.
Doyle said the decisions she made during the pandemic were made in consultation with others and not made lightly.
"What I would ask people to understand is that COVID was a phenomenon no one had ever experienced and there was no guidebook," she said.
Holland's group reached a different conclusion and says Doyle "jeopardized public safety in serving the interests of the accused and convicted criminals."
Doyle's campaign for retention has included speaking to partisan and nonpartisan community groups, attending campaign events and more recently, newspaper and social media advertisements.
Fellow Judge Wade Kagarise, who is seeking his second 10-year term on the bench, said his campaign has included attendance at community and political events, where he speaks of his candidacy and the future of the Blair County judiciary.
Two additional county judicial candidates, David Consiglio and Fred B. Miller, are listed on today's ballot as the Republican and Democratic nominees, having won both in the primary over challenger Joel Seelye.
In the primary, Consiglio and Miller were among the candidates and committees with larger campaign expenditures that paid for a variety of advertising, supplemented by door-to-door solicitations.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.