Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1986

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Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1986
Flag of Pennsylvania.svg
  1982 November 4, 1986 (1986-11-04) 1990  

  Bob Casey 1986.jpg William Scranton III.png
Nominee Bob Casey Bill Scranton III
Party Democratic Republican
Running mate Mark Singel Mike Fisher
Popular vote1,717,4841,638,268
Percentage50.7%48.4%

Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Election Results by County, 1986.svg
County results

Governor before election

Dick Thornburgh
Republican

Elected Governor

Robert P. Casey
Democratic

The Pennsylvania Gubernatorial election of 1986 was held on November 4, 1986. Democrat Bob Casey narrowly defeated Republican Bill Scranton III, in a race that featured two very high-profile candidates.

Democratic Party (United States) Major political party in the United States

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.

Republican Party (United States) Major political party in the United States

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.

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.

Contents

Primary elections

Lt. Governor Bill Scranton III ran unopposed for the Republican nomination. The major candidates for the Democratic nomination were Bob Casey, the former Auditor General who had several times previously been defeated in the primary for this office, and Ed Rendell, the Philadelphia District Attorney who would later become governor in 2002. The affable Casey had a reformist but conservative track record that made him popular in rural areas and unionized towns, while Rendell had a strong urban base.

Ed Rendell American lawyer and politician

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.

Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary election, 1986 [1]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Bob Casey 549,37656.45
Democratic Ed Rendell 385,53939.62
Democratic Steve Douglas38,2953.94

Major party candidates

Democratic

Mark Singel American politician

Mark Stephen Singel is an American politician who served as the 27th lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995, alongside Governor Bob Casey. Singel served as the state's acting governor from June 14, 1993 to December 13, 1993, during Casey's lengthy battle with amyloidosis and subsequent multiple organ transplant.

Republican

D. Michael Fisher American judge

Dennis Michael Fisher, known commonly as Mike Fisher, is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He also serves as the Distinguished Jurist in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Campaign

After being defeated in the Democratic primary for governor on three prior occasions, Casey finally won his party's nod, by beating Philadelphia District Attorney and future governor Ed Rendell. Casey, a moderate with strong labor ties and pro-life viewpoints, was often to the right of his Republican opponent on social issues; Scranton, whose father was a leading moderate, was pro-choice and attempted to connect with the fiscally conservative but socially progressive suburban voter. [2]

Philadelphia Largest city in Pennsylvania, United States

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.

The race featured back-and-forth polling in the months preceding the election, with the public demonstrating generally positive views toward both figures, but growing weary of their negative campaigning that dominated the contest. However, it was one of these many negative ads that helped to sway the election. Then-unknown political consultant James Carville commissioned the creation of commercials that emphasized Scranton's use of recreational drugs as a college student and his open practice of transcendental meditation; as a result, Casey appeared as the more socially conservative candidate, which helped him to garner a surprisingly high vote total in rural regions of the state. [3]

James Carville political writer, consultant and United States Marine

Chester James Carville Jr. is an American political commentator and media personality who is a prominent figure in the Democratic Party. Nicknamed the Ragin' Cajun, Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. Carville also worked as a co-host of CNN's Crossfire. After Crossfire, he appeared on CNN's news program The Situation Room. As of 2009, he hosts a weekly program on XM Radio titled 60/20 Sports with Luke Russert, son of Tim Russert who hosted NBC's Meet The Press. He is married to Libertarian political consultant Mary Matalin. In 2009, he began teaching political science at Tulane University.

Results

Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1986 [4] [5]
PartyCandidateRunning mateVotesPercentage
Democratic Bob Casey Mark Singel 1,717,48450.39%
Republican Bill Scranton III Mike Fisher 1,638,26848.35%
Consumer Heidi Hoover John Brickhouse 33,5230.96%
Totals3,388,275100.00%
Voter turnout (Voting age population)59.87%

Notes

  1. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=41049.
  2. Kennedy, John J. (2006). Pennsylvania Elections: Statewide Contests From 1950-2004. University Press of America. ISBN   9780761832799.
  3. Ferrick, Tom (10 February 2008). "Recalling the Maharishi and Carville's Killer Ad". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  4. The Pennsylvania Manual, p. 671.
  5. The Pennsylvania Manual, p. 633.

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