After months of campaigning, the primaries are finally over and the focus will now shift to the general election in November. And across the board there were few surprises.
One of the closest races of the evening belonged to the Democrats in the District 6 House of Delegates race. The 6th District race was handily won by incumbent Mike Weir, Jr., who ended the day with a staggering 4,181 votes. Taking up the other two nominations are Nick D’Adamo and Jake Mohorovic, who finished with 3,437 and 2,847 votes respectively.
Anna Pearce and Ed Crizer were in close contention throughout the whole evening, with Crizer and Mohorovic separated by a little over 100 votes. Pearce ended the evening off by 300.
“I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder in any election I’ve ever been in,” said Weir. “It was a lot of knocking on doors and writing literature and making calls and knocking on more doors. But I’m excited and it looks like we have to get working for November.”
Of the “Our Team” ticket, only Weir and Johnny Olszewski, Jr. made it past the primary, with Olszewski cleaning up in the 6th District’s State Senator race.
Olszewski took a commanding lead from the beginning and never looked in danger of giving it up. When all was said and done, Olszewski knocked off challenger Russ Mirabile by almost 2,000 votes. Olszewski will now face Republican John Salling in the general election.
“This was a really encouraging result,” said Olszewski. “It just goes to show that our hands-on approach really worked. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made over the last few years and I’m going to look to keep up that momentum when I get to the Senate.
When asked about facing Salling in the general, Olszewski responded that he was ready for what’s ahead.
“I don’t know much about John Salling,” said Olszewski. “I haven’t seen him around in the community much over the last few years and haven’t heard much from him. But I’m looking forward to the fight and hope we can move the campaign forward.”
In the County Council race in the Seventh District, Joe DiCara managed to come away with the nomination, but it was close throughout. DiCara maintained a lead for a strong majority of the evening, but there were moments when it seemed as if Brian Weir or Buddy Staigerwald were making a comeback. However, DiCara was able to hold on and edged out Weir by close to 700 votes.
“I’ve been involved in this community since 1974 when I began teaching at North Point Junior High,” said a beaming DiCara. “All I can really say is thank you to the voters.”
“My name is out in the community and the numbers suggest that I have electability,” he continued. “But I’m really excited because we won the Battle Grove Elementary precinct today and that area is much like a lot of the different communities in the Seventh District.”
DiCara will face Republican Todd Crandell, who ran unopposed, in the general election.
The race for the County Council’s Sixth District seemed at times especially heated. And both campaigns descended into negativity by the end of it.
Challenger Jeff Beard claimed incumbent Cathy Bevins has not done enough for her constituents and instead favored special interests in her decisions regarding zoning and land use. Meanwhile, Bevins attacked Beard’s past criminal record, as well as his lack of administrative or legislative one.
But in the end, with nearly 99 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday morning, Bevins carried the day with a lead of just under 2,200 votes.
Bevins held a watch party with family, friends and campaign volunteers at the Hazelwood Inn in Rosedale, where they watched as she held a commanding lead from the beginning of reporting. However, she stated she was still stressed and never got too confident. “It’s been a rough day,” she said.
At just after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night, Bevins announced to the group that Beard had sent her a message congratulating her. Although it was not official, campaign manager Chris McCollum commented, “I’d take that as a concession.”
As jubilation filled the room, Bevins gave a quick victory speech to her supporters. “I knew we were going to be okay - it was just getting through it - because we got so much work done,” she said.
“The end result is that she won and I didn’t,” said Jeff Beard. “That’s how these things work. I want to thank all of my supporters who believed in me. Honestly I’m more upset for the ones who worked so hard in getting me through this election.”
“I feel that I ran a clean campaign,” he continued. “I was only interested in her policies and not attacking her family or her personal life. My fullest intention was to make a difference in a positive way in District 6. I just wanted to help.”
In the House of Delegates’ Eighth District, the Democratic race was extremely tough and came down to the wire. Eric Bromwell, Renee Smith and Bill Paulshock received the Democratic nominations while Harry Bhandari and Debbie Schillinger put up strong fights.
“There are so many things to be proud of. This is the first time I ran for office and I ran against the establishment, so this is not bad at all,” said Bhandari. “We won people’s hearts and I am proud of the support we earned. This is not the end, this is a beginning, and starting point we can be proud of.”
The Seventh District race for the House of Delegates had never been heavily contested, with only three Democrats running on the blue side and two little-known challengers facing three entrenched incumbents on the red side.
In fact, polling by Pat McDonough’s campaign just weeks before Election Day indicated that the three Republican House incumbents held strong leads with voters over the challengers.
The District 7 Team, comprised of incumbent Republicans McDonough, Kathy Szeliga and Rick Impallaria, as well as Senator J.B. Jennings, was a formidable ticket and swept the race as expected.
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