More election post-mortem
I wrote this for my politics class on the House race that happened here.
The conservative 10th district of Pennsylvania, located in the central, rural part of the state, voted out Republican incumbent Don Sherwood this November, delivering the seat to Democratic challenger Chris Carney. Republicans have fared extremely well in Pennsylvania’s 10th since the 2000 redistricting, but that trend was bucked in this year’s House race, this seat being one of almost thirty seized in a national wave of Democratic victories that cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives. The outcome of this race can be attributed to a number of factors, but figuring most prominently in Sherwood’s loss is an extra-marital affair and alleged assault of his mistress made public in 2005. Operating in tandem with a national dissatisfaction with the Republican-controlled Congress and the agenda of the Bush Administration, Sherwood’s scandal cost him crucial support from his own party, allowing Carney to win by a relatively large margin despite Sherwood’s incumbency, fundraising advantage, and safely gerrymandered district.
When Sherwood was first elected to the House in 1998, the makeup of the 10th district was not as favorable to Republicans as it is now. The district’s boundaries then included the Democratic-leaning Scranton, which made Sherwood’s 1998 and 2000 elections (both times against popular Democrat Patrick Casey, brother of Senator-elect Bob Casey Jr. and son of the former governor) incredibly tight (Koszczuk and Stern 2005). However, after the 2000 census a Republican controlled state legislature shifted the more liberal Scranton into the 11th district and expanded the 10th to include large portions of rural and conservative central Pennsylvania, altering the composition of the district so drastically in favor of the GOP that Democrats didn’t even bother to field a candidate in 2002 or 2004 (Koszczuk and Stern 2005). Sherwood most likely would have cruised to victory in 2006 had his scandal not surfaced.
In the summer of 2005 Sherwood publicly admitted to having a five year extramarital affair with Maryland resident Cynthia Ore after a police report surfaced detailing an incident in which Ore locked herself in the Congressman’s bathroom and called local authorities, alleging Sherwood had choked her (Krawczeniuk 2005). While no criminal charges were pressed, Ore pursued a civil suit alleging Sherwood “repeatedly and violently abused her” during the five-year affair, which was settled out of court the following November (Kaplan 2005, Krawczeniuk 2005).
Sherwood denied all charges of abuse leveled by Ore, but the scandal began to take its toll; while major party organizations such as the National Republican Congressional Committee continued to support him, some Republicans began distancing themselves, the GOP candidate in Vermont’s at-large race even going so far as to return a donation from Sherwood’s political action committee (Kaplan 2005). When faced with a significant primary challenge in May of 2006, much of his lost support in the party base attributed to the scandal, Sherwood enlisted the help of automated phone calls from incumbent Senator Rick Santorum to bolster his conservative credentials and still only locked up 56 percent of the primary vote (Giroux 2006a, Kaplan 2005).
Meanwhile, Democrat Chris Carney, running unopposed, had won his party’s nomination and prepared to mount the first significant challenge to Sherwood since 2000. Carney, a veteran of the first Persian Gulf War, former counterterrorism analyst at the Pentagon and political science professor, had no previous experience running for or holding public office and, despite Sherwood’s scandal, was initially considered an underdog in the conservative 10th district (Giroux 2006b). Preliminary partisan polls showed Carney within striking distance, spurring Democratic interest in the apparently un-winnable race, but before Sherwood’s poor primary performance not many considered the race worth expending resources on (Krawczeniuk 2006a). As it became apparent that the embattled Sherwood had to spend large amounts of money and enlist heavyweight political help to defeat his primary challenger (who had not even spent $5,000 on her campaign), the race heated up (Krawczeniuk 2006b).
Despite spending significantly less on his primary campaign, Carney trailed Sherwood in early fundraising; by midsummer Sherwood had raised more than double what Carney had for the election cycle and still had a $150,000 cash-on-hand advantage (Krawczeniuk 2006b). However, as Carney’s campaign gained momentum the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Carney to their Red-to-Blue program, a list of several seats considered winnable by the DCCC, and encouraged Democratic donors to help his campaign (Krawczeniuk 2006b). By October, Carney was receiving more in individual donations than Sherwood for the quarter and Sherwood, a wealthy automobile dealer before elected, had loaned his own campaign $200,000 of his personal income (Piet 2006a).
Several independent polls conducted from August to October showed Carney with a substantial lead over the incumbent who was hemorrhaging Republican support, and as Election Day neared political observers such as CQ Politics declared that Carney was the likely winner of the race (Giroux 2006b). Sherwood’s scandal figured prominently in discussion surrounding the election, and he eventually issued a public apology for his infidelity while still denying allegations of abuse (Giroux 2006b). Despite these appeals for forgiveness, including one issued by President Bush just weeks before the election, Carney won the election with 53 percent of the vote (Piet 2006b, “US House Results” 2006).
Carney’s victory is unusual for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the boundaries of the district advantage Republicans overwhelmingly. In 2004 George W. Bush won the redrawn district by 20 percent of the vote, and voter registration, which requires party affiliation in Pennsylvania, is cited at more than 5-to-4 in favor of the GOP (Koszczuk and Stern 2005, Krawczeniuk 2006a). Further evidencing the success of the 2000 Republican gerrymander is Don Sherwood’s safe move to the right after winning a close election in 2000:Sherwood has a mixed record on his support for organized labor. Before his district was redrawn after the 2000 census, it included the blue-collar city of Scranton, where labor unions are strong. Sherwood cast several pro-labor votes in his first two terms, including backing a minimum wage increase in 2000. But in 2002 he opposed labor to vote for reviving fast-track procedures for trade agreements that Congress cannot amend, and in 2004 he voted against an amendment to provide an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits for people who had exhausted their state benefits (Koszczuk and Stern 2005).
No longer fearing electoral retribution in a closely divided district, Sherwood could safely oppose labor interests following redistricting. The newly drawn district can also probably account for the slight increase in Sherwood’s party loyalty, as he voted with his party 8 percent more in 2001 than in 2000 (Koszczuk and Stern 2005). As demonstrated by his lack of a Democratic challenger in both 2002 and 2004, anyone hoping to unseat Sherwood was facing an uphill battle in having to win every Democrat and peel off enough Republican and independent support to win the election.
Second, Sherwood had a significant fundraising advantage for most of the race. As an incumbent, Sherwood could begin fundraising as soon as the election cycle began in January of 2005, a full 8 months before Carney had even entered the race (Piet 2006a). His seat on the Appropriations Committee made him an attractive target for political action committees (which accounted for roughly half of his campaign finance in the 2006 cycle), especially agricultural interests as Sherwood has spent much of his time in Congress earmarking funds for Pennsylvania’s dairy industry, as well as automotive interests given Sherwood’s close ties to the automobile industry (Koszczuk and Stern 2005, “PAC Contributions” 2006, “Total Raised” 2006).
The personal PACs of Republican leaders also filled the struggling incumbent’s coffers, and Sherwood eventually loaned $200,000 of his own wealth to the campaign. By contrast, Carney’s donations came overwhelmingly from individuals, an indicator of his popularity compared to Sherwood’s later in the race. Thus this race illustrates two points: first, that popular support does not translate into more money as Sherwood was able to out-raise and outspend Carney by almost double. Second, while Don Sherwood may have had a significant advantage when it came to resources for communicating his message, his drastically increased spending compared to previous unchallenged years may actually have indicated his vulnerability in this cycle, as incumbents will spend more money when seriously threatened (“Total Raised” 2006, “PAC Contributions” 2006).
But incumbency didn’t just help Sherwood in fundraising, the incumbency itself served as an advantage. Initially appointed to the Armed Services Committee, Sherwood always had the concerns of the largest employer in his district at the time, Tobyhanna Army Depot, in mind and continues to lobby to prevent the depot from being shut down despite its relocation to the 11th district in 2000. Since 2001 Sherwood has served on the Appropriations Committee where his emphasis has turned to the rural interests of his new constituency. In 2004 alone he was able to earmark $15.6 million for local projects, usually related to dairy farming. Sherwood was also able to successfully increase Medicare funding for a small list of rural hospitals in 2003. The bulk of Sherwood’s legislative work has been in sending money back to the 10th district, something that usually bodes well for credit-claiming incumbents (Koszczuk and Stern 2005).
The manner in which this incumbency advantage was mitigated by the Carney campaign illustrates the first major reason Carney won: this race, like many others, was centered on a national theme of dissatisfaction with Congress and the Bush Administration. When the two candidates debated at Bucknell University in October the bulk of the questions were centered on national issues such as the war in Iraq and terrorism more broadly, as well as domestic issues like health care and immigration. Only three questions were allotted for local issues (Piet 2006c). Exit polls taken by CNN indicate that the majority of voters in this election (60 percent) were concerned about national issues more than local ones, especially the war in Iraq and corruption in government (“Exit Polls” 2006).
The two candidates staked out contrasting positions on Iraq, and Carney’s campaign pushed hard to associate Sherwood with the unpopular Bush presidency and its insistence that the United States “stay the course” in Iraq (Piet 2006c). Sherwood did little to dispute the association hoping that the conservative 10th district didn’t share the national displeasure with the executive branch’s performance in Iraq, but had a hard time painting his adversary as weak on security due to Carney’s credentials as a veteran and Pentagon counterterrorism official (Piet 2006d). Furthermore, public opinion data indicates that even in the 10th district, where support for Bush has been strong, roughly half of those polled indicated some level of opposition to the war in Iraq (Piet 2006e). The same respondents also said that Iraq and terrorism were their top concerns, indicating that national questions of security were displacing local issues in this race (Piet 2006e). This shift in the election focus reduced Sherwood’s ability to claim credit for his past service in Congress and put him on the defensive.
The second and more obvious reason Carney was able to win was the scandal surrounding the incumbent. Sherwood’s extramarital affair was crucial for Carney to peel off the Republican support he needed to win in the overwhelmingly conservative 10th district, as the electorate no longer viewed Sherwood as committed to the ‘moral values’ agenda of the Republican Party. Carney’s campaign strategy reflected this:Carney’s campaign recently aired a television ad that featured a self-described Republican and longtime former Sherwood supporter, who criticizes the incumbent for having “campaigned on family values and he didn’t keep up to his promises.” As the man speaks, the screen displays the phrases “repeatedly choking” and “attempting to strangle plaintiff” - damning excerpts of accusations from the woman’s lawsuit (Giroux 2006b).
This strategy was both local, in that it focused on the particular actions of Sherwood, and national as it helped Carney frame Sherwood in the larger context of government corruption and personal scandal surrounding the outgoing Republican House.
Despite clear structural advantages working in his favor, Sherwood was unable to salvage his candidacy from his scandalous affair. Democrats should be wary of this district in 2008, as the baggage associated with Sherwood will no longer be available for exploitation and Carney could easily be unseated by a challenger untainted by both personal scandal and association with the outgoing Bush Administration. At the same time, Carney will be the incumbent with all the advantages that entails. Carney will have to work hard to earn the trust of a conservative district, and seek to forge common ground on economic issues such as the minimum wage and trade (issues that one would expect to dominate the agenda of a Democratic House) rather than emphasize the divisive social issues he may be at odds with the majority of his constituency on.
References
“Exit Polls: U.S. House of Representatives/ National/ Exit Poll”. November 9, 2006. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Giroux, Greg. May 17, 2006a. “PA House: Murphys Easily Win Primaries; Sherwood Hangs On”. Accessed: October 15, 2006.
Giroux, Greg. October 9, 2006b. “Carney’s Bid Turns Sherwood from Unopposed to
Apologetic”. Accessed: October 15, 2006.
Kaplan, Jonathan E. May 3, 2006. “Santorum calls to shore up Sherwood”. The Hill. Accessed: Nov 18, 2006.
Krawczeniuk, Borys. May 15, 2006a. “Sherwood vulnerable? Depends on perspective ”.
The Times-Tribune. Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Krawczeniuk, Borys. July 19, 2006b. “Carney’s funding paces Sherwood’s”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16938391&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Krawczeniuk, Borys. July 22, 2005. “Sherwood admits to affair with plaintiff”. The
Times-Tribune. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
“PAC Contributions - Sherwood, Don (R-PA)”. October 10, 2006. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 18, 2006a. “Carney gains in fundraising”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17342511&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 14, 2006b. “Sherwood should be forgiven, Bush says”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17327605&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 5, 2006c. “Same goals, different plans”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17286691&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 17, 2006d. “Sherwood: Can’t abandon Iraq”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17337118&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 15, 2006e. “War, terror top concerns of district voters”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17330371&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
“Total Raised and Spent - 2006 Race: Pennsylvania District 10”. November 13, 2006. The Center for Responsive Politics. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
“United States House of Representatives Results/Pennsylvania 10”. November 8, 2006. . Accessed: November 8, 2006.
The conservative 10th district of Pennsylvania, located in the central, rural part of the state, voted out Republican incumbent Don Sherwood this November, delivering the seat to Democratic challenger Chris Carney. Republicans have fared extremely well in Pennsylvania’s 10th since the 2000 redistricting, but that trend was bucked in this year’s House race, this seat being one of almost thirty seized in a national wave of Democratic victories that cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives. The outcome of this race can be attributed to a number of factors, but figuring most prominently in Sherwood’s loss is an extra-marital affair and alleged assault of his mistress made public in 2005. Operating in tandem with a national dissatisfaction with the Republican-controlled Congress and the agenda of the Bush Administration, Sherwood’s scandal cost him crucial support from his own party, allowing Carney to win by a relatively large margin despite Sherwood’s incumbency, fundraising advantage, and safely gerrymandered district.
When Sherwood was first elected to the House in 1998, the makeup of the 10th district was not as favorable to Republicans as it is now. The district’s boundaries then included the Democratic-leaning Scranton, which made Sherwood’s 1998 and 2000 elections (both times against popular Democrat Patrick Casey, brother of Senator-elect Bob Casey Jr. and son of the former governor) incredibly tight (Koszczuk and Stern 2005). However, after the 2000 census a Republican controlled state legislature shifted the more liberal Scranton into the 11th district and expanded the 10th to include large portions of rural and conservative central Pennsylvania, altering the composition of the district so drastically in favor of the GOP that Democrats didn’t even bother to field a candidate in 2002 or 2004 (Koszczuk and Stern 2005). Sherwood most likely would have cruised to victory in 2006 had his scandal not surfaced.
In the summer of 2005 Sherwood publicly admitted to having a five year extramarital affair with Maryland resident Cynthia Ore after a police report surfaced detailing an incident in which Ore locked herself in the Congressman’s bathroom and called local authorities, alleging Sherwood had choked her (Krawczeniuk 2005). While no criminal charges were pressed, Ore pursued a civil suit alleging Sherwood “repeatedly and violently abused her” during the five-year affair, which was settled out of court the following November (Kaplan 2005, Krawczeniuk 2005).
Sherwood denied all charges of abuse leveled by Ore, but the scandal began to take its toll; while major party organizations such as the National Republican Congressional Committee continued to support him, some Republicans began distancing themselves, the GOP candidate in Vermont’s at-large race even going so far as to return a donation from Sherwood’s political action committee (Kaplan 2005). When faced with a significant primary challenge in May of 2006, much of his lost support in the party base attributed to the scandal, Sherwood enlisted the help of automated phone calls from incumbent Senator Rick Santorum to bolster his conservative credentials and still only locked up 56 percent of the primary vote (Giroux 2006a, Kaplan 2005).
Meanwhile, Democrat Chris Carney, running unopposed, had won his party’s nomination and prepared to mount the first significant challenge to Sherwood since 2000. Carney, a veteran of the first Persian Gulf War, former counterterrorism analyst at the Pentagon and political science professor, had no previous experience running for or holding public office and, despite Sherwood’s scandal, was initially considered an underdog in the conservative 10th district (Giroux 2006b). Preliminary partisan polls showed Carney within striking distance, spurring Democratic interest in the apparently un-winnable race, but before Sherwood’s poor primary performance not many considered the race worth expending resources on (Krawczeniuk 2006a). As it became apparent that the embattled Sherwood had to spend large amounts of money and enlist heavyweight political help to defeat his primary challenger (who had not even spent $5,000 on her campaign), the race heated up (Krawczeniuk 2006b).
Despite spending significantly less on his primary campaign, Carney trailed Sherwood in early fundraising; by midsummer Sherwood had raised more than double what Carney had for the election cycle and still had a $150,000 cash-on-hand advantage (Krawczeniuk 2006b). However, as Carney’s campaign gained momentum the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Carney to their Red-to-Blue program, a list of several seats considered winnable by the DCCC, and encouraged Democratic donors to help his campaign (Krawczeniuk 2006b). By October, Carney was receiving more in individual donations than Sherwood for the quarter and Sherwood, a wealthy automobile dealer before elected, had loaned his own campaign $200,000 of his personal income (Piet 2006a).
Several independent polls conducted from August to October showed Carney with a substantial lead over the incumbent who was hemorrhaging Republican support, and as Election Day neared political observers such as CQ Politics declared that Carney was the likely winner of the race (Giroux 2006b). Sherwood’s scandal figured prominently in discussion surrounding the election, and he eventually issued a public apology for his infidelity while still denying allegations of abuse (Giroux 2006b). Despite these appeals for forgiveness, including one issued by President Bush just weeks before the election, Carney won the election with 53 percent of the vote (Piet 2006b, “US House Results” 2006).
Carney’s victory is unusual for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the boundaries of the district advantage Republicans overwhelmingly. In 2004 George W. Bush won the redrawn district by 20 percent of the vote, and voter registration, which requires party affiliation in Pennsylvania, is cited at more than 5-to-4 in favor of the GOP (Koszczuk and Stern 2005, Krawczeniuk 2006a). Further evidencing the success of the 2000 Republican gerrymander is Don Sherwood’s safe move to the right after winning a close election in 2000:Sherwood has a mixed record on his support for organized labor. Before his district was redrawn after the 2000 census, it included the blue-collar city of Scranton, where labor unions are strong. Sherwood cast several pro-labor votes in his first two terms, including backing a minimum wage increase in 2000. But in 2002 he opposed labor to vote for reviving fast-track procedures for trade agreements that Congress cannot amend, and in 2004 he voted against an amendment to provide an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits for people who had exhausted their state benefits (Koszczuk and Stern 2005).
No longer fearing electoral retribution in a closely divided district, Sherwood could safely oppose labor interests following redistricting. The newly drawn district can also probably account for the slight increase in Sherwood’s party loyalty, as he voted with his party 8 percent more in 2001 than in 2000 (Koszczuk and Stern 2005). As demonstrated by his lack of a Democratic challenger in both 2002 and 2004, anyone hoping to unseat Sherwood was facing an uphill battle in having to win every Democrat and peel off enough Republican and independent support to win the election.
Second, Sherwood had a significant fundraising advantage for most of the race. As an incumbent, Sherwood could begin fundraising as soon as the election cycle began in January of 2005, a full 8 months before Carney had even entered the race (Piet 2006a). His seat on the Appropriations Committee made him an attractive target for political action committees (which accounted for roughly half of his campaign finance in the 2006 cycle), especially agricultural interests as Sherwood has spent much of his time in Congress earmarking funds for Pennsylvania’s dairy industry, as well as automotive interests given Sherwood’s close ties to the automobile industry (Koszczuk and Stern 2005, “PAC Contributions” 2006, “Total Raised” 2006).
The personal PACs of Republican leaders also filled the struggling incumbent’s coffers, and Sherwood eventually loaned $200,000 of his own wealth to the campaign. By contrast, Carney’s donations came overwhelmingly from individuals, an indicator of his popularity compared to Sherwood’s later in the race. Thus this race illustrates two points: first, that popular support does not translate into more money as Sherwood was able to out-raise and outspend Carney by almost double. Second, while Don Sherwood may have had a significant advantage when it came to resources for communicating his message, his drastically increased spending compared to previous unchallenged years may actually have indicated his vulnerability in this cycle, as incumbents will spend more money when seriously threatened (“Total Raised” 2006, “PAC Contributions” 2006).
But incumbency didn’t just help Sherwood in fundraising, the incumbency itself served as an advantage. Initially appointed to the Armed Services Committee, Sherwood always had the concerns of the largest employer in his district at the time, Tobyhanna Army Depot, in mind and continues to lobby to prevent the depot from being shut down despite its relocation to the 11th district in 2000. Since 2001 Sherwood has served on the Appropriations Committee where his emphasis has turned to the rural interests of his new constituency. In 2004 alone he was able to earmark $15.6 million for local projects, usually related to dairy farming. Sherwood was also able to successfully increase Medicare funding for a small list of rural hospitals in 2003. The bulk of Sherwood’s legislative work has been in sending money back to the 10th district, something that usually bodes well for credit-claiming incumbents (Koszczuk and Stern 2005).
The manner in which this incumbency advantage was mitigated by the Carney campaign illustrates the first major reason Carney won: this race, like many others, was centered on a national theme of dissatisfaction with Congress and the Bush Administration. When the two candidates debated at Bucknell University in October the bulk of the questions were centered on national issues such as the war in Iraq and terrorism more broadly, as well as domestic issues like health care and immigration. Only three questions were allotted for local issues (Piet 2006c). Exit polls taken by CNN indicate that the majority of voters in this election (60 percent) were concerned about national issues more than local ones, especially the war in Iraq and corruption in government (“Exit Polls” 2006).
The two candidates staked out contrasting positions on Iraq, and Carney’s campaign pushed hard to associate Sherwood with the unpopular Bush presidency and its insistence that the United States “stay the course” in Iraq (Piet 2006c). Sherwood did little to dispute the association hoping that the conservative 10th district didn’t share the national displeasure with the executive branch’s performance in Iraq, but had a hard time painting his adversary as weak on security due to Carney’s credentials as a veteran and Pentagon counterterrorism official (Piet 2006d). Furthermore, public opinion data indicates that even in the 10th district, where support for Bush has been strong, roughly half of those polled indicated some level of opposition to the war in Iraq (Piet 2006e). The same respondents also said that Iraq and terrorism were their top concerns, indicating that national questions of security were displacing local issues in this race (Piet 2006e). This shift in the election focus reduced Sherwood’s ability to claim credit for his past service in Congress and put him on the defensive.
The second and more obvious reason Carney was able to win was the scandal surrounding the incumbent. Sherwood’s extramarital affair was crucial for Carney to peel off the Republican support he needed to win in the overwhelmingly conservative 10th district, as the electorate no longer viewed Sherwood as committed to the ‘moral values’ agenda of the Republican Party. Carney’s campaign strategy reflected this:Carney’s campaign recently aired a television ad that featured a self-described Republican and longtime former Sherwood supporter, who criticizes the incumbent for having “campaigned on family values and he didn’t keep up to his promises.” As the man speaks, the screen displays the phrases “repeatedly choking” and “attempting to strangle plaintiff” - damning excerpts of accusations from the woman’s lawsuit (Giroux 2006b).
This strategy was both local, in that it focused on the particular actions of Sherwood, and national as it helped Carney frame Sherwood in the larger context of government corruption and personal scandal surrounding the outgoing Republican House.
Despite clear structural advantages working in his favor, Sherwood was unable to salvage his candidacy from his scandalous affair. Democrats should be wary of this district in 2008, as the baggage associated with Sherwood will no longer be available for exploitation and Carney could easily be unseated by a challenger untainted by both personal scandal and association with the outgoing Bush Administration. At the same time, Carney will be the incumbent with all the advantages that entails. Carney will have to work hard to earn the trust of a conservative district, and seek to forge common ground on economic issues such as the minimum wage and trade (issues that one would expect to dominate the agenda of a Democratic House) rather than emphasize the divisive social issues he may be at odds with the majority of his constituency on.
References
“Exit Polls: U.S. House of Representatives/ National/ Exit Poll”. November 9, 2006. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Giroux, Greg. May 17, 2006a. “PA House: Murphys Easily Win Primaries; Sherwood Hangs On”. Accessed: October 15, 2006.
Giroux, Greg. October 9, 2006b. “Carney’s Bid Turns Sherwood from Unopposed to
Apologetic”. Accessed: October 15, 2006.
Kaplan, Jonathan E. May 3, 2006. “Santorum calls to shore up Sherwood”. The Hill. Accessed: Nov 18, 2006.
Krawczeniuk, Borys. May 15, 2006a. “Sherwood vulnerable? Depends on perspective ”.
The Times-Tribune. Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Krawczeniuk, Borys. July 19, 2006b. “Carney’s funding paces Sherwood’s”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16938391&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Krawczeniuk, Borys. July 22, 2005. “Sherwood admits to affair with plaintiff”. The
Times-Tribune. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
“PAC Contributions - Sherwood, Don (R-PA)”. October 10, 2006. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 18, 2006a. “Carney gains in fundraising”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17342511&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 18, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 14, 2006b. “Sherwood should be forgiven, Bush says”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17327605&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 5, 2006c. “Same goals, different plans”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17286691&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 17, 2006d. “Sherwood: Can’t abandon Iraq”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17337118&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
Piet, Elizabeth. October 15, 2006e. “War, terror top concerns of district voters”. The
Times-Tribune. < http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17330371&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=589401&rfi=6> Accessed: November 14, 2006.
“Total Raised and Spent - 2006 Race: Pennsylvania District 10”. November 13, 2006. The Center for Responsive Politics. Accessed: November 18, 2006.
“United States House of Representatives Results/Pennsylvania 10”. November 8, 2006. . Accessed: November 8, 2006.