Stanley P. Brozana Jr., 72 – Served 37 Years as Orwigsburg Police Chief
The hotly contested Primary Election for the 2 Republican Schuylkill County Commissioners nominations is nearly a week behind us.
While Larry Padora and Barron Hetherington were ultimately the winners of the night, securing those 2 nods, let’s take a look at how they won the vote by breaking down the precinct-by-precinct totals across Schuylkill County.
Before we look at the raw numbers, here’s an overview …
Total Precincts Won
As expected, Padora – who got the most votes last Tuesday – won the most precincts, 36 of the 125 in all.
The second-place finisher, Hetherington, got the second-most number of precinct victories with 26.
Maria Casey, who finished 4th in votes, actually won the 3rd most precincts with 24. Mary Jo Moss, who came in third place behind Hetherington, won 23 precincts.
Jeff Dunkel picked up wins in 10 precincts. Ray Jones got 7, Dan Evans got 6, and George Halcovage won 1 precinct on the night.
What’s interesting is that in Padora’s 36 wins, he got 2,329 votes. That is nearly 40% of all the votes he received on the night.
By contrast, Hetherington’s 26 precinct wins got him 1,357 votes, or about 26% of his total. That means Hetherington won a nomination by the victory-by-a-thousand-cuts approach, in contrast to Padora’s approach to victory.
Where Did the Candidates Perform Best?
Not surprisingly, voters of Schuylkill County tended to pick someone they knew or knew of at the ballot box last Tuesday. Each of the top-tier candidates who picked up multiple wins on Election Night performed best where they know Schuylkill County best.
For instance, Padora, of New Ringgold, who also owns a bread bakery business in Tamaqua, did best in that part of Schuylkill County.
In New Ringgold, for example, Padora got 30 votes and was only one of two candidates (Moss) to get double-digit votes.
He got 377 votes from Tamaqua’s 4 precincts but only won 2 of them, splitting them with Evans, who hails from Tamaqua.
Hetherington did well north of the mountain, as they say, and in more rural areas. He easily won his home precinct of Union Township, getting 175 votes. His next closest competitor there was Jones and his 70 votes.
He also won 3 of Shenandoah’s 6 precincts, 2 of 3 in West Mahanoy Township, Ringtown’s 1 precinct, all of Frackville’s 3 precincts, and half of Mahanoy City’s 4.
Voters to Win Over in November
While Padora and Hetherington surely will be favored in November’s General Election, thanks to Schuylkill County’s heavy tilt to Republicans, each candidate has plenty of opportunity to bring more voters into their camp.
And they may want to start wooing those voters or have the candidates who rolled in those areas to back their candidacy.
For instance, Moss picked up 2,215 votes and performed well in highly-concentrated voter areas, namely in southern Schuylkill County
She won all of East and West Brunswick, Washington and Wayne townships’ precincts. She also got nearly 200 votes in South Manheim Twp for the win there, too.
Moss also won the southern-ish boroughs of Auburn, Cressona, Schuylkill Haven, and Orwigsburg.
Pottsville
And while it’s not exactly a conservative hotbed, there are plenty of voters to convince in the City of Pottsville.
Padora finished 2nd in Pottsville, but the night belonged to Casey there. She picked up 355 votes and 5 precinct wins. Dunkel also did well in the city with 294 and won 3 precincts. Moss got 290 votes of her own in Pottsville, too.
Have a look at the precinct-by-precinct vote totals from the May 16 Primary. Check all the results of contested elections in the 2023 Schuylkill County Municipal Primary.
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