Saturday, January 21, 2012

State House Elections - 28th District

Could be big changes in the 28th State house District. Now that State Rep. Mike Turzai is planning on running for Congress in the newly designed (designed by Turzai himself) 12th District there could be a new State Representative from the 28th District. The district is extremely Republican so the battle will be in the Primary.

A question I have posed was if Turzai will run for both Congress and State House at the same time. I don't know how confident he is that he will win the Congressional Primary against Keith Rothfus.
I also think it will be more difficult than Turzai thinks to win the 12th District in the General if he is facing Altmire. I think Turzai could easily beat Critz mostly because Critz lives in Johnstown and 3/4 of the population of the 12th don't know much about Johnstown outside of the movie Slap Shot. Other than that, with Critz taking the hard line Democrat stance to win the Primary he is creating headlines for the Republicans in the General Election. The type of people that read this blog should know that the debt limit increase vote was a political stunt. However, that political stunt works for the Republicans because a majority of the voters don't understand how the government does business.

There was mention that one Republican was planning on running against Mike Turzai regardless of his intentions for the Congressional race. Karen Shaheen, who is the treasurer of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County, mentioned that she was going to circulate a petition against Mike Turzai. She said that Turzai has become a career politician that used to be a Democrat. She also said the attempt to pass liquor privatization and school vouchers were false marketing. Karen ran for school board in 2007 and 2009 and lost. She appears to be very conservative.

Can a good moderate Democrat make a run at this seat if she is the front runner?

Incumbent: Mike Turzai (Republican, Majority Leader of the State House, candidate for Congress)

Possible challengers: Karen Shaheen (Republican)
Sharon Brown (Democrat ran in 2010)

Here is the new map of the 28th State House Distinct. The green parts are the
old district and the aqua blue line is the outline of the new district.

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