A half dozen contested races for state House and Senate nominations highlight the primary election ballot Tuesday in Northeast and Central Pennsylvania.
They include challenges to three incumbent state legislators, an uncommon occurrence in a primary.
Most other incumbents across the region are unopposed in the primary on Tuesday but will face challengers in the Nov. 3 general election.
Primary elections take place mostly so Democrats and Republicans can choose nominees for the November elections that decide who wins an office. Non-Democrats and non-Republicans can only vote in primaries on ballot questions.
In Williamsport, all voters can vote yes or no on a ballot question asking whether to empanel a commission to study the city’s form of government.
In LeRaysville in Bradford County, all voters can decide whether to allow the state to issue licenses to sell liquor in the borough.
No other county in WVIA's coverage area has a ballot question.
Why all the challengers?
Chris Nicholas, a Republican political consultant, said the challenges to incumbents partially show the “coalitions that both parties are built on are changing.”
“I mean, it hasn't happened yet, because it's a general election race, but Republicans think they can win the seat that includes Wilkes-Barre,” Nicholas said, referring to the state 121st House District seat, normally a Democratic stronghold. “When did you ever think that was going to happen?”
The seat is open because 20-year incumbent Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, a Democrat, is retiring. Though it isn’t one of the three with an incumbent facing a challenge, Nicholas said the seat illustrates the changing political landscape.
Two of the three challenges to incumbents focus on state senators – Sen. Lisa Baker, a Luzerne County Republican who has represented the 20th Senate District for almost 20 years, and Marty Flynn, a Lackawanna County Democrat who has represented the 22nd district since June 2021.
Tyler Meyers, of Sugar Notch, Luzerne County, is challenging Baker, a resident of Lehman Twp., Luzerne. Jeffrey Lake, a Clarks Summit resident, faces Flynn, a Dunmore resident.
In the 20th, Nicholas said, Meyers is able to seriously challenge Baker because of the support of a political action committee funded largely by skill games operators. The operators are targeting Baker and two other incumbent Republican senators elsewhere for wanting to regulate and tax skill games, he said.
Nicholas said the Flynn-Lake Democratic race resembles the 117th House District contest, where first-term Rep. Jamie Walsh, a Republican and a resident of Ross Twp., faces William Jones, of Dorrance Twp.
Flynn and Walsh are completing their first full terms, usually the time challengers from within a party step up, Nicholas said.
This is most often true for representatives like Walsh’s case because he’s completing a two-year term, less so in Flynn’s because senators serve four years at time, he said.
Walsh has had less time to develop the permanent support that discourages challengers than Flynn, Nicholas said.
“A senator has more time to put things away, more time to make new friends,” said Nicholas, once a top strategist for the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.
20th Senate District
Meyers, 32, is a veteran who left the Army because he didn’t want to comply with an order to take what he thought was too risky COVID-19 vaccine. He works as behavioral specialist consultant for a company that serves people with intellectual disabilities and autism.
He said he decided to run because of Baker’s support for Kooth, an app that connected children with mental-health counseling without requiring parental consent. Meyers and others on the right also claim it promotes transgender ideology.
“Then, when I started looking into her record and saw the way she votes pro-abortion across the board, ... I can't believe she's never faced a primary challenger since 2006,” Meyers said.
Republicans should back him, he said, because “I am pro-life. I'm pro-Second Amendment (gun rights), I'm pro-school choice, and I'm anti LGBTQ ideology being in our schools.”
Baker, 64, seeking her sixth four-year term, is chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She favors a woman’s right to choose an abortion. She favors gun rights and led the Judiciary Committee in voting two weeks ago to allow people to carry firearms without a government permit. She favors school choice and opposes teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation in schools without parental consent.
She believes she deserves re-election because she’s worked to protect children from predators and promoted legislation to increase penalties for assaulting police.
She promised, “to continue to address affordability issues, both in housing, the cost of electricity and working to advance new generation.”
“We've reduced taxes. So those are all the platforms that I've run on in the past, and I want to continue to run on,” Baker said.
Baker said she supported the state Department of Health making Kooth available at first in 2022 because of the need for post-COVID-19 mental health treatment. She didn’t know that Kooth didn’t require parental consent for students to use it and pointed out only two school districts in her Senate district adopted its use, she said.
“It was something that sounded promising, using technology to help kids,” she said. “So, I voted for the overall budget, and I did a joint press release announcing the availability of it, but that was the extent of my involvement, the availability of the funding.”
Kooth failed because it didn’t work, she said.
The race has been marked by hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending by two outside groups.
Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania, funded by the skill games interests, has aired scores of television ads attacking Baker. Win for Pennsylvania, funded by a major national conservative group, has done the same, attacking Meyers and backing Baker.
The winner Tuesday will face Jackie Baker, who lives in Liberty Twp., Susquehanna County. She’s not related to the senator, who easily defeated her four years ago. She is unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
The district covers all of Pike, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties and parts of Luzerne and Wayne counties.
22nd Senate District
Flynn, a state representative for more than eight years before winning a Senate special election in 2021, won re-election in 2022.
“I'm super accessible. I work my district day in and day out and continue to support things that people in Northeastern PA (want) to make their lives better and to help bring resources back,” he said.
Flynn, 50, said he successfully fought for $130 million in state money for local projects the past four years and tens of millions more before he was a state representative.
With Lackawanna County a hub of potential data center development, Flynn said he understands residents don’t want the center near their homes and promises to support legislation to “make sure that that these places aren't in the wrong places.”
“And that when they do come here, that the communities that have them don't get basically screwed over,” Flynn said.
Lake, 36, is a special education aide for the Abington Heights School District with past experience as a licensed practical nurse and mental health therapist. He points out he spent the second half of his childhood living in public housing.
He acknowledges Flynn is better known but said the senator’s experience “means nothing when you don't do anything for the people of the district. “
“Voters should pick me because I have a true understanding of the needs of the community, because of my personal background and professional background, I have seen and lived every aspect of the community,” he said.
He faults Flynn for taking tens of thousands in political contributions from data center operators or people with an interest in them and never really opposing the centers. He portrays Flynn as a backroom operator in a corrupt political system, pointing to the senator’s $100,000 donation to Lackawanna County Commissioner Thom Welby’s political campaign.
Flynn has said he would have given Welby “a million dollars if I had it” because “Welby is the most honorable public servant, probably in the history of Lackawanna County.”
Flynn declined to comment on Lake’s statements.
If elected, Lake said, he would focus on controlling data centers starting with a three-year moratorium, building community centers, establishing universal childcare, moving the state toward a single-payer health care system, boosting the state corporate net income tax to 9.99% and amending the state constitution to allow higher taxes on wealthier residents.
The winner will face Sharon Soltis Sparano, a resident of LaPlume Twp., Lackawanna County, and a former Throop council president. She is unopposed for the Republican nomination.
The district covers parts of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties, including Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Pittston.
117th House District
Walsh, 51, won the 117th district seat by defeating Rep. Mike Cabell in the Republican primary by only four votes two years ago in a race that took months of legal battles to resolve.
Walsh said he deserves re-election because he’s responded to community needs, including sponsoring legislation to leave control of where data centers are located entirely in local hands.
Walsh said he promised to support school choice, defend gun rights, fight illegal immigration and work to eliminate property taxes.
“I have either prime-sponsored or co-sponsored bills to support what I ... was running on,” Walsh said. “I believe that I have worked as hard, if not harder than any state representative in the Commonwealth.”
Jones, 62, the son of former Luzerne County Commissioner Joseph “Red” Jones, is a former banker, former vice president and chief operating officer at Volunteers of America and former CEO of the United Way of Wyoming Valley.
“With 40 years of experience of helping to strengthen the community, build community, serve people in need, putting together, understanding budgets, job creation, and really understanding the community, I thought I'd have some experience to bring to Harrisburg,” Jones said.
Too often, legislators put their “ideologies in front of the issues and things aren't getting done.”
“And I believe that I could be more effective than the incumbent in trying to get results,” Jones said.
He points out none of Walsh’s bills have reached the House floor for a vote.
They disagree sharply on data centers and reducing property taxes.
Walsh favors amending a moratorium on data center construction to allow for zoning ordinance updates, eliminating a data center tax exemption and amending the state constitution to give municipalities full control to block data centers.
He also favors eliminating property taxes through a combination of higher sales and income taxes.
Jones said the property tax proposal would eliminate taxes on large corporations while leaving lower-income residents paying higher sales and income taxes.
Jones said he would push legislation to direct data centers to industrial zones and environmentally scarred land away from homes; set up a state fund to help local municipalities defend against data centers; require operators to “bear the full cost” of power; and require posting bonds to remove obsolete centers.
The winner will face Jeremy Benscoter, a Democrat who lives in Hunlock Twp., Luzerne. He is unopposed for the Republican nomination.
The district covers most of the townships and boroughs in eastern Luzerne County.
121st House District
The race pits Wilkes-Barre Council President Jessica McClay against retired city emergency medical technician Michael Stadulis for the Democratic nomination. Both live in Wilkes-Barre City.
McClay, 51, said she grew up in a low- to middle-class family that struggled to get by financially. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education and worked as a substitute teacher for several years.
With no full-time job on the horizon, she left teaching.
“It was only paying $75 a day, and I couldn't raise three kids on that,” she said.
McClay became a workers' compensation insurance claims adjuster and more active in the community by coaching T-ball and softball, becoming president of a merged city Little League.
“I've always worked with the community, and then from there it kind of led me to working with the city,” she said.
She served on the city Fire Civil Service Commission, including as chairperson, and Planning Commission and Traffic Committee. She was elected to the council in 2023.
“I think that I am ready to go, because I have the government experience, as well as the community experience. I know what the people here need, because myself, I've struggled,” she said.
McClay said she would concentrate on making life more affordable for people, perhaps through tax breaks. She favors increasing the minimum wage, legalizing recreational marijuana use to raise tax revenues and increasing funding for public schools and road improvements.
Repeated efforts to reach Stadulis were unsuccessful.
The winner will face Republican Michael D. Harostock III, who lives in Hunlock Twp., Luzerne. He is unopposed for the Republican nomination.
The district covers all the Wilkes-Barre Area School District municipalities, except for Laflin.
In the other contested state legislative races:
The 114th House District Republican nomination race pits Logan Lombardo, of Clarks Summit, against Scranton resident David Burgerhoff.
Incumbent Rep. Bridget Kosierowski, of Waverly, Lackawanna, is unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
The 120th House District is a Democratic battle between two women who ran for the seat before.
Fern Leard, of Dallas Twp., Luzerne, won the Democratic primary two years ago, but lost the seat in November to Brenda Pugh, a Republican and the current representative.
Leard’s opponent is Luzerne County Councilwoman Joanna Bryn Smith, of Wyoming. Smith lost to incumbent Republican Rep. Aaron Kaufer in 2020.
Pugh, who also lives in Dallas Twp., is unopposed for the Republican nomination.
The other major contested race in the region is for the Democratic nomination to the 7th Congressional District seat. The district includes all of Carbon and Northampton counties and parts of Monroe and Lehigh counties.
Four Democrats want to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in what will likely become one of the hottest congressional races in the country. They are Bob Brooks, Carol Obando-Derstine, Ryan Croswell and Lamont McClure.
