The last of the regional straw polls of Pennsylvania Republican state committee members produced wins for U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Bartos and gubernatorial candidate Dave White on their home turf.
The GOP committee members from the Southeast Caucus met on Wednesday night to hear from the candidates for these open statewide offices and take a non-binding vote on which candidate they favored ahead of this weekend’s Republican State Committee meeting in Lancaster.
In the U.S. Senate race, Bartos, a real estate executive from Montgomery County, received 34 votes to continue his string of earlier wins in the Central and Northeast regional caucuses and as a favorite in the Northeast Central and Northwest caucuses that scored the candidates differently than the other caucuses.
Coming in second with 27 votes was Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, who won the straw poll in last weekend’s Southwest Caucus and was among the favorites in the Northwest Caucus.
He was followed by television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz who received 12 votes and former U.S. ambassador Carla Sands, conservative activist Kathy Barnette and Philadelphia attorney George Bochetto, each receiving two votes from the committee members from Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties.
In the governor’s race, White received 30 votes to build on his previous record of being the top vote-getter in the Central, Northeast Central, and Southwest caucuses and being among the top three favorites in the Northwest Caucus poll.
“I am incredibly encouraged that our message of bringing less talk and more action to Harrisburg continues to resonate with voters across Pennsylvania,” said White, a Delaware County businessman. “For too long, Harrisburg has ignored reducing the tax burden on hard working families, lessening the regulatory burden on Pennsylvania businesses, securing our elections for all voters, and putting parents back in charge of their children’s education. I can feel our campaign’s momentum growing by the day, and I know we are ready to take on and defeat career politician Josh Shapiro this November.”
Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, is the presumed Democratic gubernatorial nominee.
A fellow GOP candidate from the southeast, former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain of Delaware County, came in second with 20 votes in Wednesday’s straw poll. He was followed by Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman of Centre County with 12 votes; GOP strategist and public relations firm CEO Charlie Gerow with seven; Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry CEO Guy Ciarrocchi, with five; former congressman Lou Barletta of Luzerne County, with four; and Dr. Nche Zama, a retired cardiothoracic surgeon from Northampton County, with one vote.
A straw poll taken on the question of whether the state committee should endorse in candidates in these races resulted in 42 no votes and 37 yes votes, according to results provided by Montgomery County Republican Committee’s executive director Julia Vahey. That result mimics the feelings of committee members in at least two other regional caucuses where that question was polled.
The Southeast Caucus did not hear from the lieutenant governor candidates due to time constraints on Wednesday evening, but Vahey said the committee members plan to hear from them on Saturday morning at the caucus’ breakfast during the state committee meeting.
In last weekend’s Northwest Caucus poll where state committee members were asked to identify their top three favorite candidates in each race, Barnette made the cut along with Bartos and McCormick in the Senate race, according to Politics PA. Repeated attempts to confirm the results with caucus chairwoman Sheila Sterrett were unsuccessful.
For governor, Politics PA reported that Zama, Allegheny County attorney Jason Richey, Gerow, McSwain and White emerging as the top choices with three of them getting the same number of votes although it is unclear which ones received the same number. Zama’s campaign issued a news release on Sunday saying he was the top vote getter in that caucus vote.
Last weekend, the Democratic State Committee met and endorsed Shapiro for governor and lieutenant governor candidate Austin Davis, but none of the candidates in the hotly contested Senate race won the two-thirds majority needed to capture the party’s endorsement.
Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.
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