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The Pennsylvania gubernatorial election of 1982 was held on November 2, 1982 between incumbent Republican Dick Thornburgh and Democratic U.S. Congressman Allen E. Ertel.
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.
Richard Lewis Thornburgh is an American lawyer, author and Republican politician who served as the 41st Governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the U.S. Attorney General from 1988 to 1991. Before his time as Attorney General and Governor, he worked in the office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.
Incumbent Governor Dick Thornburgh ran unopposed for the Republican nomination. Allen Ertel was the consensus Democratic choice. His opponents included Philadelphia political consultant Steve Douglas, Fayette County businessman Earl McDowell, and Northumberland County dentist Eugene Knox.
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Allen Ertel | 436,251 | 57.64 | |
Democratic | Steve Douglas | 143,762 | 19.0 | |
Democratic | Earl McDowell | 116,880 | 15.44 | |
Democratic | Eugene Knox | 59,925 | 7.92 |
James R. "Jim" Lloyd, Jr. was an American politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania State Senate for the 5th district from 1979 until 1984.
William Worthington Scranton III served as the 26th lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987 in the administration of Governor Richard Thornburgh. He is the son of the late Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, and a member of the wealthy and politically influential Scranton family, the founders of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Thornburgh, who maintained high approval ratings during his first term, was initially considered a shoo-in for reelection, especially after the Democrats' top candidate, Philadelphia District Attorney (and future governor) Ed Rendell, declined to seek the nomination. Ertel struggled early with fundraising and, because of his residence in heavily Republican Central Pennsylvania, lacked a base among the state's strongest Democratic constituents: urban voters and organized labor. However, as a serious recession hit the state, Ertel campaigned hard against the economic policies of President Ronald Reagan, whom Ertel blamed for failing to protect the state's manufacturing sector; Thornburgh was forced to distance himself from his party's executive, as support for Reaganomics waned. [2]
Philadelphia, known colloquially as Philly, is the largest city in the U.S. state and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the sixth-most populous U.S. city, with a 2018 census-estimated population of 1,584,138. Since 1854, the city has been coterminous with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the eighth-largest U.S. metropolitan statistical area, with over 6 million residents as of 2017. Philadelphia is also the economic and cultural anchor of the greater Delaware Valley, located along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, within the Northeast megalopolis. The Delaware Valley's population of 7.2 million ranks it as the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States.
Edward Gene Rendell is an American lawyer, prosecutor, politician, and author who, as a member of the Democratic Party, served as the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2011 and the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2000.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.
The state's political environment strongly favored Ertel not only because of national issues, but because the governmental cuts undertaken by Thornburgh during his term as governor had caused him to lose the support of severally traditionally Democratic-leaning organizations that had once stood by his side, such as the NAACP and the state's teachers' union. However, Ertel ran a relatively mediocre campaign and hurt his chances with several gaffes, such as accusing the governor of exploiting his handicapped son's condition for political gain. Ertel's own mistakes were considered to be a crucial component in Thornburgh's win. [2]
Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1982 [3] [4] | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Candidate | Running mate | Votes | Percentage | |
Republican | Dick Thornburgh | Bill Scranton III | 1,872,784 | 50.84% | |
Democratic | Allen Ertel | James Lloyd | 1,772,353 | 48.11% | |
Socialist Workers | Mark Zola | Wilson Osteen, Jr. | 15,495 | 0.42% | |
Consumer | Lee Frissell | Judith Faulkner | 13,101 | 0.36% | |
Libertarian | Richard Fuerle | David Walter | 10,252 | 0.28% | |
Totals | 3,683,985 | 100.00% | |||
Voter turnout (Voting age population) | 64.60% |
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