Rep. Roae roars to 10th term
Incumbent state Rep. Brad Roae, a Republican from East Mead Township, appears to have soundly defeated Michael Walker of Meadville, his Democratic challenger, according to unofficial vote totals in Tuesday's race for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives' 6th Legislative District seat.
The win would send Roae back to Harrisburg, where he has been a consistent supporter of conservative positions, for his 10th consecutive term.
Roae said the positive evaluation from voters felt good.
"I was confident during the campaign that my constituents were happy with how I do my job," he said late Tuesday evening. "Like I've said before, my voting record reflects how they would vote on the things if they all got to go to Harrisburg. I'm happy they elected me for another term and like I always do I'm going to work as hard as I can to represent the people and help our area as much as I can."
With all 36 Crawford County precincts and three of five Erie County precincts reporting, Roae led the unofficial count with 21,858 votes, 69.8 percent of the votes that had been counted. Walker had 9,400 votes, 30 percent of the total. In addition, there were 72 unresolved write-in votes, 67 in Crawford County and five in Erie County.
Looking ahead to his return to Harrisburg, one goal stood out above the others for Roae.
"We have to get state spending under control," he said. "At the rate we're burning through the tax surplus, we're going to need a tax increase."
Pennsylvania's demographic trends make the issue even more of a concern, he continued, with the population of retirees steadily increasing while the working age population gradually shrinks.
"The numbers are getting really financially challenging," Roae added. "We just don't want to have to do a tax increase."
Walker was not entirely surprised by the outcome.
"It's a pretty steep hill to climb in this district, and Brad's been kind of a mainstay in this district for the past 18 years," he said in a phone interview after the unofficial results were released. "I wish him the best of luck. He did a good job running."
Walker planned to discuss the possibility of future forays into elected office with his wife and said he hoped to see a different tone evolve in politics, particularly at the national level. He pointed to his race against Roae as an example, saying that while the two candidates disagreed on issues, they kept the contest civil.
"I'd love to see this country less polarized as to one side or the other," he said. "Politics seems to have become more of a team sport and less about policies. People get really fired up about it on that level. I think there's a lot more common ground than people might see."
In fact, according to Roae, the civility was evident on Election Day. When visiting some of the 41 precincts in the 6th District, they ran into each other at New Beginnings Church of God, the location of West Mead Township's second precinct.
"We talked for a couple of minutes but obviously we were both talking to voters more than each other," Roae recalled, laughing, "I figured he wasn't going to vote for me and he knew I wasn't going to vote for him., so we were talking to people who might vote for us."
