Lee And DePasquale Win, Salisbury Overcomes Challenges, Inglis Appears To Win Closest Race Of The Night

 

By Thomas Leturgey

Moments after 8:00 p.m., the Allegheny County voting results website had the first batch of results.

With the Presidential Primaries with Democrat President Biden, former President Trump (Republican), U.S. Senator Robert Casey (Democrat) and Republican challenger Dave McCormick all but decided, there were several local Mon Valley races with significance.

With 0% of the ballots officially processed, Congressional District 12 Democrats Summer Lee had a lead over Bhavini Patel, 22,209-18,029. These are largely mail-in votes that were just starting to be counted.

The race to replace retiring District 45 state Senator James Brewster is between state Representative Nick Pisciottano and Makenzie White. In the earliest of goings, Pisciottano had a 10,501 to 3,414 lead. On the Republican ticket, Jen Dintini was outdistancing Kami Stulginskas. 1,942 to 632.

State Senator Jay Costa, a Democrat, was running unopposed on both tickets.

Incumbent Pennsylvania state Representative Abigail Salisbury of the 34^th District was ahead of challenger Ashley Comans, 3,223 to 1,533.

Matt Gergely of the 35^th District, is running unopposed.

And in the 38^th Legislative District, Baldwin’s Victoria Schmotzer was leading fellow challengers from West Mifflin John Inglis and A.J. Olasz, 1,567, 1,470 to 1,236. On the Republican side, Whitehall’s Stone Sobieralski is running unopposed.

At approximately 8:45, the first updated numbers came in. At .64%, the numbers still represented less than 1% of the total turnout.

The voting for Summer Lee increased to 22,666 votes to Patel’s 18,132.

Another race of note is that of Attorney General. With .68% of the votes in, Allegheny County’s Eugene DePasquale was far ahead of the rest of the Democratic class, all who are based in eastern Pennsylvania. On the Republican ticket, Dave Sunday was besting Craig Williams, about 2-1.

Right before 9:00 p.m. and with about five percent of the votes processed, Abigail Salisbury was taking a bigger lead over Ashley Comans, 3,559 to 1,654 votes.

Right after 9:00 p.m., and with approximately 15% of the votes tallied, Summer Lee had a lead over Patel, 28,652 to 20,924.

With about 18% of the vote in, Salisbury was beating Comans, 3,939 to 1,984. She never looked back. That win was decisive for Salisbury. In recent weeks, it had made National News that Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato and Summer Lee had endorsed Comans. No Republican was on the ballot in that district. By 11 p.m., Salisbury had a 7,978 to 4,636 victory.

At a few moments before 10 p.m., the U.S. Congressional race, District 12, was called for Lee. The incumbent had an insurmountable lead of 50,768 to 31,078 with 70% of the votes counted. She will face Republican James Hayes, who ran unopposed, in the General Election.

DePasquale dominated the rest of the field for Auditor General and will face Dave Sunday in the fall.

By 10 p.m., it was clear that in the election to replace Senator Brewster, Pisciottano was going to face Dintini in the fall.

At 10:30 p.m., the race to replace Pisciottano in the state House District 38 was up for grabs. Schmotzer was in the lead with 2,492 votes to Inglis’ 2,478 and Olasz’s 2,224.

As expected, Schmotzer carried her home area of Baldwin, with Inglis and Olasz splitting the votes in each of the 18 municipal districts. Schmotzer had an even bigger margin of victory in Whitehall and its 16 districts.

Olasz won all three districts in Dravosburg and all six across the Allegheny in Glassport.

The 38^th also includes seven districts in the Lincoln Place neighborhood within the city of Pittsburgh. Inglis won a close race in the 31^st Ward.

The race came down to the voters in West Mifflin and Inglis won most of those districts. At 11:00 p.m. with 88% of precincts reporting, Inglis had 3,180 votes to Schmotzer’s 3,132 and Olasz’s 2,876.