Some local political pundits, both Republicans and Democrats, speculated prior to Tuesday\u2019s election the race to replace Larry Sather as representative from the 81st District likely would be a close call. It was not as political newcomer, Republican Mike Fleck of Springfield Township, handily defeated Democratic challenger Roy Thomas, Saltillo, a retired school teacher and current Huntingdon County Commissioner.
\n\u201cWe worked our tails off,\u201d Fleck told The Daily News (The Daily Herald\u2019s sister paper) Tuesday night.
\nThe winner also said he did much door-to-door campaigning from prior to the primary right up to the day of the general election.
\n\u201cRoy worked hard, and that inspired me,\u201d said Fleck.
\nFleck said he soon would be attending \u201cschool\u201d for newly elected officials.
\nTuesday night, Fleck and supporters gathered at Huntingdon\u2019s Comfort Inn while Thomas supporters were around the corner at the Days Inn.
\nWhen it became apparent Fleck was going to be the winner, Thomas paid Fleck a visit to offer congratulations.
\n\u201cThat gesture was magnanimous,\u201d said Karl Lang, Fleck\u2019s campaign manager and a former county GOP chair. \u201cI am not sure I can remember something like that happening before.\u201d
\nThomas said this morning, \u201cWe knew it was going to be an uphill battle because of the registration number. We knew the odds were against us, but we were willing to take on those odds. The odds won, and we lost.\u201d
\n\u201cI felt the race would have been tighter,\u201d Greg Kough, the chair of the county\u2019s Democratic Committee, told The Daily News. \u201cThe people in the 81st District have spoken, and both candidates ran positive races.\u201d
\nHe said Fleck\u2019s challenge would be to unite the district and bring the parties together to work hard for the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some local political pundits, both Republicans and Democrats, speculated prior to Tuesday\u2019s election the race to replace Larry Sather as representative from the 81st District likely would be a close call. It was not as political newcomer, Republican Mike Fleck of Springfield Township, handily defeated Democratic challenger Roy Thomas, Saltillo, a retired school teacher and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}