Victory in Pennsylvania

Alison Omens, a fellow in the AFL-CIO Public Affairs Department, has spent the past several weeks getting out the vote in Pennsylvania and reports on working families’ incredible victories in that state.

What a HUGE day for working families! Across the country, we see newly elected representatives who are aligned with working family values. In addition to all our new members of Congress (and the first woman speaker!), we have three new champions of working-class issues in the U.S. Senate—Sherrod Brown, Bernie Saunders and, of course, right out of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey Jr.

I heard someone say on Monday that as Pennsylvania goes, so goes the country. Well, there were four congressional races and one Senate race that were being watched across the country as indicators of how bad the climate would be for Republicans. On Tuesday night, we showed how fed-up working families were with the Bush Republicans in Washington, D.C., and across the country.   

Union volunteers, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and central labor council leaders worked hard to elect candidates who will listen to what working families need. That’s why today, Pennsylvanians are celebrating. We’re celebrating because we know we fought hard (and won!) for working families.

Across Pennsylvania, 6,500 union volunteers walked in neighborhoods and called on phones to get union voters to the polls. We knocked on 650,000 doors and made 500,000 calls, all on Election Day! 

Today, we claim victory as newly elected Sen. Bob Casey Jr., and newly-elected members of Congress Jason Altmire, Chris Carney and Joe Sestak are all headed to Washington. Additionally, Democrats picked up seats in the Pennsylvania Legislature (and we may even win the Pennsylvania state House!)

Pennsylvania and the country scored a huge victory today with Bob Casey Jr. being elected to the U.S. Senate. His opponent, Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, ignored working families. He sided with Wal-Mart and other anti-worker special interests at the expense of working Pennsylvanians. Bob Casey Jr. will be a great representative for the people of Pennsylvania and for working families across the country.

In Allegheny County (which encompasses Pittsburgh), the 4th Congressional District quickly became a race of interest as distaste for the rubber-stamp Republicans grew across the country. Melissa Hart is your typical Bush-Republican. We saw her time and again cater to her corporate donors at the expense of working Americans. Well, her time is up. Now, working families are counting on Jason Altmire, our new representative in that district! Union volunteers were out every Saturday and on the phones every night, fighting for Jason Altmire and other candidates at all areas of government, including Pennsylvania state House races and even city council races. We also were able to win because Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, which has tens of thousands of Pennsylvania members signed up tens of thousands of members and put 100 people in the field for the “Final Four.”

Chris Carney and Joe Sestak, both fighting against long-term Republican members of Congress, emerged victorious as well. Their opponents—Curt Weldon and Don Sherwood—both voted for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and harbored an anti-working family agenda. We can count on both Carney and Sestak to fight for access to quality health care, good jobs and retirement security, just as we fought for them.

Of course, like always, you can’t win them all. There are some races we lost. But in two years, we’ll be back, stronger than ever, the wind on our backs, knowing that we will continue to elect working family candidates. Today, we see a new direction for Pennsylvania. 

We’re all ecstatic in Pennsylvania. We woke up this morning knowing that we fought to move our country in a new direction and succeeded.

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