The Craig Williams for Congress Campaign Committee has been busy crunching the primary election numbers and has come up with an interesting analysis of how their man did compared to the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Joe Sestak, in Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District.Williams led all Republican congressional challengers in Pennsylvania in votes and trailed just two sitting Republican congressional incumbents in total votes received, according to the campaign.
That's pretty impressive considering the high turnout for Democratic Party primary. The numbers should also put some fear into Sestak, who could end up being a one-term congressman.
Despite a 2.3 to 1 Democrat to Republican voter turnout advantage, Williams received 51,590 votes to Sestak's 88,189 votes, the campaign notes. That margin is the closest ratio of any Republican challenger in Pennsylvania by far.
"These numbers show a great decline in Sestak's support among voters in the 7th District," said Pete Peterson, spokesperson for the Craig Williams for Congress campaign. "Sestak is not getting the support he needs to win this election. Democrat turnout reached a high-water mark in this contested primary, while Republican turnout will drastically improve in the general election."
About 60% of the registered Democrats came to the primary polls on Tuesday, compared to a 26% turnout for Republicans.
Despite the unusually high turnout for Democrats, they were not pulling the lever for Sestak, the Williams' camp says.
In the Delaware County portion of the 7th District, 16,158 Democrat voters cast their vote for one of the presidential candidates, but would not vote for Sestak, despite the fact that he was running unopposed in the primary election. In the Chester County portion of the 7th District, Sestak ran 1,887 votes behind the presidential vote count.
Peterson speculated that Sestak's "embarrassingly high-profile" support of Hillary Clinton may have turned off a number of Senator Barrack Obama supporters.
In addition, Sestak has said he would not switch his vote as a super-delegate, despite the fact that Delaware and Chester County voted for Senator Obama by a 55 to 45 percent margin.
Peterson cited these figures as an indication of the strength of Craig Williams’ campaign:
Williams led all Republican congressional challengers in Pennsylvania with 51,190 Republican votes. In comparison, Toni Gilhooley (PA-17th) received 48,449 followed by former member of Congress Melissa Hart (PA-4th) with 41,584, Tom Manion (PA-8th) with 35,585 and Lou Barletta (PA-11th) with 27,290.
Craig ran at the top of the Republican ticket in Delaware County (majority of the district) with 39,194 votes to John McCain's 38,007 (79% of Republican vote).
In the 7th congressional district, Joe Sestak received a total of 88,189 votes to Craig's 51,190 votes with a 2.3:1 Democrat to Republican turnout. These figures are even more impressive when you consider that 60 percent of registered Democrats turned out compared to only 26 percent of registered Republican.
Democrats are clearly not happy with Sestak, and he fell 16,158 votes behind the total presidential vote count just in the Delaware County portion of the 7th Congressional District, and 1,887 in the Chester County portion.
2 comments:
Tony I have to ask Bob Roggio put out simular numbers and was blasted by you. Don't you think alot of the D voters that didn't vote for Sestak had more to do with being new Obama people?
Thank You AJ. Many People who only turn out every four years don't remember to vote down the ticket. And if Moveon.org folks didn't vote for Sestak, they are even less likely to vote for Craig Williams.
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