Northeastern Pennsylvania Weighs the Governor's Race and Beyond
Lackawanna County voters on Tuesday help pick Pennsylvania's governor, Congress and the legislature — in a valley that both parties court and neither takes for granted.
Northeastern Pennsylvania's ballot on Tuesday starts in Harrisburg and Washington but lands in the Lackawanna Valley. Voters choose a Governor and Lieutenant Governor — Democrats Josh Shapiro and Austin Davis against Republicans Stacy Garrity and Jason Richey — in the race that decides who runs the state government whose funding reaches Scranton's schools, roads and county services.
Below it sit the valley's own delegations: a U.S. House seat, Pennsylvania House races across Scranton, Dunmore, Dickson City and Clarks Summit, and Pennsylvania Senate seats in the districts on this year's cycle, plus ballot questions that reward an advance look at vote.pa.gov. Harrisburg's education and transportation formulas are written by the people these races send there, which is why the valley's turnout is watched statewide.
The region's politics resist summary, which is the point. Lackawanna County mixes a Democratic city, competitive suburbs and a labor history that runs from the 1902 coal strike to the present; its voters have swung statewide races before and are courted accordingly by both campaigns in the closing weeks.
Practicalities close the case: polls are open Tuesday, November 3, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; anyone in line by 8 p.m. may vote; mail ballots must be received by the county board of elections by 8 p.m., postmark notwithstanding; and results will post after polls close at electionreturns.pa.gov.
In the Electric City, Election Day is also a small civic festival of the ordinary kind — neighbors staffing the same polling places in the same school gyms and fire halls, in a county where the courthouse on the square has been counting votes since 1878.
