Editorial: Voters ousted incumbents in dramatic primary races

Pennsylvanians went to the polls Tuesday. If they cast ballots earlier via mail, those votes were counted Tuesday.

It might have been a bit anticlimactic. Turnout was so low in some areas that the Greensburg Fire Department Central Hose Company No. 2 polling place saw only 15 people as of 3 p.m. That was slow even for a primary in an off-year municipal election.

But, by Tuesday night, as votes were counted and the preliminary wins were scored, one thing was clear: The people who voted had an impact.

The biggest single race in the region was for Pittsburgh mayor. On the Democratic side, it had been a slugfest for months, with incumbent Ed Gainey squaring off against Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor.

O’Connor took an early lead and held on. It wasn’t a landslide, but it was a decisive 52.7% to 47%. For the second mayoral election in a row, the incumbent mayor lost in a primary challenge.

Just as with Gainey’s win in 2021, the general election results are likely to be the same. Pittsburgh has not had a Republican mayor in more than 90 years. Tony Moreno won the GOP nod Tuesday with 62% of the 4,630 Republican votes cast. O’Connor won his nomination by a 3,347 vote margin over Gainey.

But Westmoreland County had its own incumbent drama.

After years of saying the county’s Register of Wills Office was in trouble, Katie Pecarchik was brought in to right the ship by a conservator. Sherry Magretti Hamilton resigned during her third term last year after being convicted of contempt of court. Pecarchik was passed over for appointment to fill the job when Jon Wian, former chief of staff to Commissioner Sean Kertes, was nominated for the job and appointed by Gov. Josh Shapiro.

On the GOP ballot, Pecarchik walked to a 13-percentage-point win over Wian and 24 points over Kimberly Horrell. It remains to be seen whether there will be a challenge in the fall. No one ran as a Democrat, but there were 2,363 write-ins.

Then there was the coroner’s race. In 2021, Republican Tim Carson beat five-term coroner Ken Bacha, ending more than four decades of a Bacha family dynasty in the office.

On Tuesday, John Ackerman, who worked as a deputy coroner under Bacha, defeated Carson for the GOP slot, 53.6% to 46.3%. There was no Democratic challenge, but, like the register of wills, that could change based on more than 3,000 write-in votes.

Elections can be dismissed as performative. Do they really matter? What does one vote really mean?

One vote, on its own, might seem inconsequential. But, like snowflakes, they can add up to an avalanche. At least three incumbents can attest to the way those votes add up.