NEWS VOICES
Welcome to News Voices, a weekly feature where members of the WVIA News team will talk with each other — and sometimes sources — about key things we've learned in recent stories we have been working on.
Today Roger DuPuis sits down with Borys Krawczeniuk to discuss key takeaways from Tuesday's primary election in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.
***
ROGER: I'm Roger DuPuis, and this is News Voices. Today I have with me WVIA News reporter Boris Krawczeniuk. Hello, Borys!
BORYS: Hello there.
ROGER: Welcome back. We're going to talk about the 2025 municipal primary here in Pennsylvania, in our region. And as always, those municipal primaries tend have somewhat low turnout. Was that the case again on Tuesday?
BORYS: Yes, generally, primary elections for local races turn out mainly people who vote all the time, and that's what happened in this election. You didn't really see very many places where the election got over 25%.
ROGER: And the most watched race in our region, without a doubt, was the Scranton mayoral contest in which incumbent Paige Cognetti defeated primary challenger Bob Sheridan.
BORYS: Not only defeated him, slaughtered him three to one. Not close. Some people might have thought it would be, but it wasn't.
ROGER: This is going to be in November, a very hotly contested race. So talk to me about who Cognetti is facing and what some of the other implications of Tuesday night could be.
BORYS: The best known name is former Scranton City Councilman Gene Barrett. He was a councilman back in the 1990s and ran for mayor in 2002 [but] lost to Chris Doherty in the Democratic primary. He later on became the executive director of the sewer authority. He was pretty much retired, and then decided to come out of retirement to take on Cognetti. He was going to run in the Democratic primary, but decided he couldn't beat her in the primary, so he switched to independent, and he's going to run as an independent. He's probably the biggest threat to her, because he used to be a Democrat, and Scranton has a lot more Democrats than Republicans. Then there's Trish Beynon, who won the Republican nomination [Tuesday], you know, defeating Lynn Labrosky, and then another independent candidate, Michael Mancini ... who has not run for city office before, but, you know, could throw a wrench into the race.
ROGER: Okay, let's talk a little bit about Scranton City Council. So the impact of what happened Tuesday night could certainly make it interesting for Cognetti to govern if she wins again.
BORYS: Right. Her anointed candidate, Todd Pousley, did not win. He finished fourth for three nominations on the Democratic side. The winners were all people who seemed to be aligned with council vice president Mark McAndrew, and ... if all three were to stay aligned with him, would give them a four-to-one majority on the council, and that would give them a supermajority that could create problems for Cognetti getting her agenda through.
ROGER: Moving on. Talking a little bit about some of the other counties we cover, in particular Luzerne County, there was a very important race in Hazleton regarding a city government study commission. Tell us about that.
BORYS: Right. They've they approved this, creating a city government study commission. Voters overwhelmingly approved that. Most of the seven members are members of the either past or current members of the city administration. So whatever happens will fall along the lines of what they want. And it also probably means that there won't be district voting, rather than at-large voting. Members of the Latino community were looking for their candidates to get on and create a district voting, which is regional. You know, you set up regions in the city for voting, and that probably won't happen, because the candidates who won are opposed to that.
ROGER: And the vote was not close. It was 944 in favor, to 497 against.
BORYS: Right. Yeah, voters mostly think that it's okay to study things, you know? We'll find out later if they think that they they want to adopt whatever the commission comes up with.
ROGER: There was a heated primary on both sides of the aisle for Luzerne County Council seats. Tell me about that.
BORYS: So on the Republican side, Kevin Lescavage, who was an incumbent councilman, lost, and we're going to see the renomination of a former councilman, Stephen J. Urban. The other three incumbent councilmen won, and so did a newcomer from southern Luzerne County, Jackie Scarcella. Now they're going to go up against five Democrats. This will be a really good matchup to watch in the fall.
ROGER: Borys, thanks for being here.
BORYS: All right. Thanks.
READ MORE ABOUT THIS ISSUE:
Borys Krawczeniuk will have more on how the November contests are shaping up this Sunday, May 25, on WVIA.org.
Here's a recap of stories from primary day:
