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Rematch Tussle for Pennsylvania’s Kanjorski
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Race
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| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Edited | Monsieur Jan 06, 2010 11:34pm |
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| Category | Election Guide |
| Author | Shira Toeplitz |
| News Date | Thursday, January 7, 2010 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | There is no question that Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, the 13-term Democrat from Pennsylvania’s 11th District, faces a tough re-election contest this year — a race on which CQ Politics has changed its rating to Leans Democratic from Likely Democratic.
The leading contender for the Republican nomination is Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who entered the race Dec. 9 to pursue a rematch of the 2008 race that Kanjorski won by just 3 percentage points. The incumbent ran well behind Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama , who won by 15 points in the typically Democratic-leaning northeastern Pennsylvania district that includes Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
This is, in fact, round three in one of the longest-running political rivalries in House politics. Barletta was first nominated to challenge Kanjorski in 2002, but the incumbent won that race by a comfortable 13-point margin. In the intervening years, though, Barletta gained national attention and a following among some conservative activists for his effort to crack down on illegal immigrants as mayor of the 11th District city of Hazleton, while Kanjorski’s political fortunes flagged.
Barletta and fellow Republicans battered Kanjorski over allegations about his political ethics, which have dogged him for nearly a decade even though he has consistently denied wrongdoing. In addition, Kanjorski’s senior position on the House Financial Services Committee, which the veteran incumbent had previously touted, lost its political luster when the nation’s financial sector unraveled in the fall of 2008 and pushed the nation’s economy into a deep recession.
Democrats argue, though, that the 2008 race actually showed Kanjorski’s resilience in the face of a fierce challenge and will prove to be Barletta’s high-water mark. |
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