McCormick takes 11th-hour lead in commissioner race
Mike McCormick talks to supporters Tuesday at Rolling Hills Country Club in McMurray.
Branded by a Republican opponent as a “career politician,” Harlan Shober was hoping he was on his way to securing a second, four-year term as a Washington County commissioner as election results rolled in Tuesday.
But challenger Mike McCormick, who had stayed within a few hundred votes all night, saw last-minute ballots carry him to a 67-vote lead with one precinct remaining to be counted late Tuesday.
With all 176 precincts reporting, according to unofficial returns from the Washington County elections office, McCormick had 16,258 votes and Shober had 16,191. Incumbent Democrat Larry Maggi had 22,147 votes to win another term in office as did Republican incumbent Diana Irey Vaughan with 19,059.
The race was tight throughout the night, with less than one percentage point separating the third- and fourth-place finishers. There are about 1,000 absentee ballots still to be counted.
Shober, 70, who retired from AT&T after 32 years and was owner and president of the Shober Homes Inc. construction business for a dozen, had previously served as a Chartiers Township supervisor, which carries a small stipend, and a member of the Chartiers-Houston School Board. Board of education members serve without compensation.
McCormick, who lives in Republican-dominated Peters Township, blanketed mailboxes with fliers paid for by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania that tied Shober to a Washington County heroin epidemic, called him and his running mate, Maggi, “liberal Democrats,” and placed him in league with Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.
Of the 14 precincts yet to be counted at 11 p.m., there was one from Peters Township, McCormick’s home community. He and his supporters watched returns at Rolling Hills Country Club, but a voicemail message for the candidate was not immediately returned.
McCormick’s attack ads targeted Shober, who gathered with friends and family at his Chartiers Township home Tuesday night, although the three incumbents have voted unanimously on just about every issue that has come before them in the past four years.
Shober chose not to respond to salvos launched through the McCormick campaign.
“There was no credibility in what was said, and I don’t feel I wanted to get into that same mudslinging,” Shober said by phone shortly after 11 p.m. “That’s not the way I do things. Whatever happens happens.”
In each of the two elections for the county commission, Shober has seen special ballots hike turnout in predominantly Republican Peters.
In 2011, Shober faced not only Bill Northrop Jr., but a referendum question in Peters that dealt with property owners’ gas and oil rights. This year, after the resignation of Democrat Matt Smith from the 37th Senatorial District, Peters, the sole Washington County community in the district, had a special election in which to vote.
Four years ago, Shober led by 386 votes on election night, but after a two-day count of absentee ballots, his lead was 435.
Maggi said a few weeks ago that he expected Shober to prevail because of the powers of incumbency. McCormick, however, perceived an angry electorate in an anti-incumbent mood.
McCormick ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the 1990s against Democrat Frank Mascara. Shober tried for a nomination as commissioner candidate from Democrats in 2007, but fell short to Maggi and then-incumbent Bracken Burns. When Burns announced his retirement in 2011, Shober succeeded him.
McCormick, 66, said in a pre-election interview that he would retire as the chief executive officer of Benchmark Wealth Management regardless of the outcome of the election.