Election Day returns finally pushed Perry in front about 1:00 a.m. Wednesday, but neither candidate was able to declare victory before their post-election day gatherings Tuesday night.
Rep. Scott Perry addresses supporters at his election day watch party just after midnight at Boomerangs in Fairview Twp. Nov. 5, 2024. Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.comIt took a full night of counting, but incumbent U.
S. Rep. Scott Perry appears to have captured a 7th term in Congress. Unofficial final counts from the Dauphin, York and Cumberland counties showed with 203,460 votes, or 50.8 percent, to Democrat challenger Janelle Stelson’s 197,048, or 49.2 percent. That was based on nearly complete counts of mail-in ballots, in which Stelson held a nearly 30,000-vote lead, and final, tabulations of in-person, election-day returns from 351 precincts. Perry was leading the election day count by about 36,000 votes. The final count won’t be certified for several weeks, but the margin now looks solid for the incumbent. Perry won the York portion of the district - his home county - by 13,595 votes, and Cumberland by 5,416 votes. Stelson was leading in Dauphin by 12,601.PennLive was not able to reach Perry after the final numbers came in about 1:30 a.m. Earlier, Perry briefly addressed a post-election gathering for supporters and campaign volunteers at Boomerang Bar & Grill in Fairview Township - and before the last big batch of York County votes came in that pushed into the lead.“It has been a, as you know, a long and challenging campaign,” Perry said. “We knew that this was going to be a fight, and it is a fight. The good news is there is a still a lot out... and a lot of it looks good.“What I’d like to do is thank everybody for all your hard work. Keep your spirits positive. The sun’s going to come up tomorrow and we expect to have victory in the presidency and in this congressional district.” At Stelson’s watch party at The Englewood in Hershey, the challenger thanked her campaign staff for what she called “the hardest, best year of my life” and thanked her friends and neighbors for their support.Stelson - speaking when she was still holding a significant lead - took the opportunity to once again outline her platforms and contrast them with Perry’s, claiming he planned to curtain Social Security benefits and raise the age of eligibility, She also called for term limits for members of Congress. “I say 12 years. He’s already served 12. Let’s limit him! And I’d be happy to limit my own,” Stelson said. But the largest crowd reaction came when Stelson spoke in support of “a woman’s right to determine what happens to her body. And maybe Scott Perry should not be involved.” The 10th District, created in 2018 out of a court-ordered redistricting in response to a suit about partisan gerrymandering, consists of all of Dauphin County, roughly the northern half of York County and most of Cumberland County. The eyes of the nation are literally on the race, as the district is seen as one of about 30 House races nationally that will tell the tale of which party has majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives.has based her candidacy on the premise that Perry is not only too extreme in his political views for the Republican-leaning 10th District but, as of the 2020 presidential election, he is an oath breaker to boot. She based that latter argument on Perry’s activities in the period after the 2020 presidential election when, texts and other records have shown, he worked tirelessly in support of former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to cling to power despite his electoral defeat to Joe Biden.On the election subversion charges, Perry argued his communications at that time were a response to concerns he was hearing from constituents and other sources, and were designed to help him reach a decision about his vote on certification of the election results. Perry did contact high-ranking federal Department of Justice officials to try to ensure they were taking a serious look at various fraud allegations, the record shows. But a federal judge weighing in on the FBI’s seizure of Perry’s cellphone held information she had seen showed that Perry, in addition to gathering information, was “attempting to influence the conduct of executive branch officials and encouraging them to engage in efforts to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election.” If he comes across as a political maverick, it’s because, Perry argued, he’s one of the few politicians in Washington D.C. who has remained true to the limited-government, less-regulation platform that he initially ran on. Many of Stelson’s supporters talking to PennLive at polling places Tuesday mentioned Trump’s election subversion efforts in 2020, and Perry’s cheerleading for it, as a key consideration in their vote. “I have real difficulty with that. Doesn’t everybody?” Carlisle resident Sharon Wilson said Tuesday after casting her ballot at the Carlisle Baptist Church.Others made clear that they were voting for Stelson as part of a straight-party ballot that included support for Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Robert P. Casey at the top of the ticket. And then there were other reasons, like Stelson’s stated support for term limits: “I think he’s been in office too long,” said Glenn Rinehart, an 83-year-old AMP and Tyco retiree who noted he doesn’t particularly dislike Perry. “It’s just time to get some new blood in there,” said Rinehart, who described himself as an independent voter. Perry supporters said they agreed with Perry’s conservative principles, from limiting government spending to securing the border and investing in a strong national defense while staying out of wars that the United States has no need to be in.“I liked that he was willing to go against the flow and search for the truth, instead of accepting things that just don’t make sense. And he put his political life on the line to do that,” said Rich Gensler, a voter from Carroll Township, York County who had just voted for Perry. When he was asked about Perry’s actions, culminating in objections on the House floor to the final certification of Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral college votes for Joe Biden, Robert Innerst, also of Carroll Township, said he admired Perry’s courage. “I was excited for it,” Innerst said, adding he still has lingering questions about the administration of the 2020 vote. “I wanted him to fight it all the way.”Perry did have a number of built-in advantages in the race, starting with voter registration: the 10th holds 242,563 Republicans ; 206,392 Democrats , with the remaining 18 percent registered as independents or with other parties.This was the incumbent’s closest race yet, but on a night that was very good for Republicans statewide, it appears that Perry was able to climb into the GOP victory train too. 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