A Night at the Races

Gun owners really hit some home runs last night in the 2010 Pennsylvania primary races. Some wins were completely unexpected, and others weren’t what we hoped other than keeping anti-gun leaders down. Here’s a run down of just a few stand out races we were watching for our Second Amendment rights:

Lt. Governor – Democratic Nomination
It’s still a nail biter – and there will likely be ballot challenges in some ares – but early results show that State Rep. Scott Conklin has come out of no where as a late entry to the race to possibly topple the state party endorsed candidate out of Philadelphia, Jonathan Saidel. In his last election to the state House, Rep. Conklin had an A rating from NRA and earned their endorsement. With 99.2% of precincts reporting at about 9am, Conklin leads by 4,654 votes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the lead grows as the final votes come in.

Senate District 14 – Democratic Nomination
NRA endorsed State Rep. John Yudichak had a commanding victory over anti-gun mayor Tom Leighton. This seat is likely to remain in Democratic hands, as it has been for decades, so the Democratic primary was essentially the election to watch. Leighton is a member of Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition calling for an end to gun shows in Pennsylvania. We congratulate Senator-elect Yudichak for his decisive victory.

Governor – Republican Nomination
Either of the candidates in the Republican primary would have been great for gun owners. They both had strong records of defending the Second Amendment, and we’re very proud to see Attorney General Tom Corbett carrying the banner into November. Of course, we also regret that the State Rep. Sam Rohrer will be departing the State House since he opted not to run for his local seat during the primary. Hopefully his replacement in the seat will be as worthy of the support of gun owners as Rep. Rohrer has been over the years.

Senate District 22 – Democratic Nomination
This is a mixed bag election for gun owners. On one hand, the NRA backed candidate – State Rep. Jim Wansacz – did not make the final cut for November. On the other hand, the extreme anti-gun Mayor of Scranton did not survive either. A dark horse candidate won the race, and we hope to find out more about his position on guns rights in the future. This is his first elected office, and he was backed by the retiring pro-gun Senator for this open seat. For anti-gun Chris Doherty, this is his second setback in a few months after his campaign for governor floundered. Calling in the big guns, the anti-gun leader brought in Bill Clinton to record phone calls for him, though it did no good.

Overall, we’re sending a great message to Harrisburg: Your anti-gun candidates will not survive the electoral games this year. It doesn’t matter if you have the backing of Michael Bloomberg and his ally Bill Clinton, NRA members will make sure your race goes down in defeat.

Now comes the harder part where we step in for the final months to turn out the vote in November. We need your help to make sure Harrisburg and Washington are filled with pro-rights supporters.