Oct 28, 2019 6 min read

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the number of Republican lawmakers representing Washington County in office. 

Washington & Jefferson College political science professor Joseph DiSarro watched two county commissioner candidates in action at a recent gathering at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum centering on its Trolley Street project.

Through the hubbub, DiSarro, who said he’s not serving as a consultant to any candidate this year, was quietly observing two men who are in the commissioners race.

DiSarro called both Harlan Shober and Nick Sherman “good politicians.”

“Harlan worked the crowd, and he somehow has a way of winning,” he said. “Sherman is able to go out there and connect with the average person.”

Four people are on the ballot for four-year terms as county commissioners. Voters get to choose not more than two candidates, and the top three vote-getters are to be seated on the board to guarantee minority-party representation.

Since he first ran for county commissioner in 2003, Larry Maggi, a Democrat, has amassed the most votes among four-person fields. He’s seeking his fifth term.

Also since that year, Diana Irey Vaughan, a Republican, has finished a close second. She’s seeking her seventh term.

Barring any massive upsets, the race for the third seat comes down to Shober, an incumbent Democrat seeking his third term, and Sherman, a first-time Republican nominee. Like Shober, Sherman previously ran unsuccessfully for his party’s nomination. The Democrat came up short in 2007, and the Republican, 2015.

Returns over the past three elections show a trend, with margins in the races for the third seat on the board dwindling over the years from thousands, to hundreds, to mere tens.

In each of the two most recent elections for the board, the commissioners’ race coincided with special ballots that increased turnout in predominantly Republican Peters Township.

In 2011, Shober faced not only Bill Northrop Jr., a Peters resident, but a referendum question only on ballots in that municipality dealing with property owners’ gas and oil rights.

In 2015, after the resignation of Democrat Matt Smith from the 37th Senatorial District, Peters, the sole Washington County community in the district, had a special election in which to vote.

Republican Guy Reschenthaler, now a U.S. Congressman, prevailed, but Republican Mike McCormick did not. McCormick lost to Shober – after absentee ballots were counted and the election board weighed in on challenges to provisional ballots – by 35 votes.

It was the first time provisional ballots, instituted in the Help America Vote Act of 2002 were a significant factor in a countywide race in Washington. Provisional ballots are issued at a polling place when a voter’s name does not appear at the precinct level on the list of those registered, but the voter believes he or she is registered.

Provisional ballots are not cast via voting machine, but are marked on paper and placed in envelopes kept separately until the voter’s registration status can be verified during a post-election canvass.

McCormick held a 67-vote edge on election night 2015, but those results did not include nearly 800 absentee ballots that were not counted on election night.

The race “flipped” as Shober gained more votes than McCormick among absentee ballots.

Fewer than five percentage points now separate those enrolled as members of the two major parties. Democrats in the 1980s outnumbered Republicans in Washington County by a three-to-one margin.

After voter registration closed Oct. 7, the ranks of Republicans, third-party and unaffiliated voters increased.

Washington County is home to 65,827 Democrats and 59,059 Republicans. Since this time last year, the Democratic Party lost 1,022 members, while gains among Republicans totaled 1,157, nearly equaled by the number of independents and third-party members, which saw an increase of 1,127.

If Sherman and Irey Vaughan are victorious, the Washington County board of commissioners will have a Republican majority in January for the first time in 20 years.

In 1995, Irey Vaughan’s first year as a commissioner candidate, Republicans were able to capitalize on dissatisfaction with incumbent Democrat Metro Petrosky, who got the boot. The GOP captured a majority on the board of county commissioners for the first time since 1933 in the wake of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Irey Vaughan noted there were two Republican state legislators representing residents of Washington County when she took office in 1996, Al Pettit (R-Upper St. Clair) in the 40th district and Mike Fisher (R-Upper st. Clair) from the 37th senatorial district.

. Now, legislators and a senator are all Republicans, with the exception of “the s” – State Sen. Iovino of Mt. Lebanon, who represents Peters Township in the 37th District, and State Rep. Snyder of Jefferson, Greene County, who has a sliver of southeastern Washington County in her 50th District.

The Washington County board of commissioners reverted to two Democrats and one Republican in 2004, which was also the last year a Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, carried the county by 552 votes.

Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney, won here in 2008 and 2012, respectively, over President Barack Obama, and in the 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump crushed Hillary Clinton in Washington County 60.5% to 35.8%.

Then it was back to cliff-hangers. Democrat Conor Lamb lost Washington County, but narrowly defeated Republican Rick Saccone and Libertarian Drew Gray Miller in a special Congressional election in 2018 by 755 votes out of more than 228,830 cast.

Last year, a legislative race that included Mon Valley communities in both Washington and Fayette counties was even tighter, with Republican State Rep. Bud Cook pulling out an 11-vote victory over Democrat Steve Toprani.

“From ’08 to now, I think the county has moved to the Republican side,” DiSarro said. “Concerning the visibility of the office, even commissioner is not that high of a level. It’s going to depend on the organization.

“The best organized candidate will win the race.

“If turnout is low, it favors the incumbent. Are there enough Reagan Democrats and Republicans to make a difference? It’s going to be quite an evening.”

The “Reagan Democrats” to which DiSarro referred generally include white, blue-collar workers.

The irony is in 1980 and 1984, Reagan, whom, of course, prevailed both nationally and statewide, lost in Washington County. The “Gipper’s” total in 1980 was 39.6% to President Jimmy Carter’s 55.2%. Four years later, Reagan did only a tad better, 40.4%, while Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, garnered 59.2% here and carried all of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

The decline of the steel industry, resulting in a high unemployment rate among a unionized workforce, is generally attributed as the reason for Reagan’s shellacking here.

A W&J student who graduated last May examined turnout by party registration and found in Washington County, Democrats are much more likely to vote in local elections that Republicans.

Jesse Crammer, a numbers-cruncher who studied 20 years’ worth of election data in Washington County, found members of the Democratic Party have a 13% higher turnout than members of the GOP.

“Previous election history tells you how likely someone is to vote,” Crammer explained.