Oct 29, 2014 1 min read

A recent article in the Observer-Reporter about the 9th District congressional race was headlined, “9th Congressional District remains GOP stronghold.” While this was once the case, it no longer is today.

The latest figures from the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s office indicate that there are 191,550 registered Republicans in the district and 185,851 registered Democrats. This means that there are only 5,699 more registered Republicans than Democrats, which is only a bit more than 1 percent of the registered voters.

The article went on to state that, “in 2010 the 9th was the most Republican district in Pennsylvania, but redistricting slightly increased the number of Democrats with the addition of majority-Democratic Fayette County.” I would suggest that rather than slightly increasing the number of Democrats, this greatly increased the number of Democrats, so that the district is now just slightly more Republican than Democratic.

The point here being that if Democrats come out to vote, and if the many more moderate and even conservative voters that have told us they are tired of incumbent U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster and are going to vote for Alanna Hartzok really do, then Hartzok stands a very good chance of winning the election.

Rob Wheeler

Fayetteville