Halvorson’s write-in campaign makes for tough race with Shuster
If you thought this year’s election couldn’t get any stranger, well, it just did.
Art Halvorson, the retired Coast Guard officer from Bedford County who ran far to the right of U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster in his unsuccessful bid to unseat the incumbent in the April primary election, might somehow be headed for a rematch against the eight-term congressman, this time on the Democratic side of the ballot.
Halvorson appears to have received more Democratic write-in votes in the meandering 9th Congressional District, which includes the Mon Valley and the eastern side of Greene County, than actual Democrat Adam Sedlock of Chalk Hill, Fayette County.
Halvorson told the Observer-Reporter last week that he holds a slim 1,080-to-1,036 lead over Sedlock in the write-in tally, and it appears unlikely those numbers will change.
If those totals do indeed hold, it would be a stunning development in the congressional race during an already volatile and unpredictable election season.
Halvorson, a self-proclaimed “conservative, Tea Party-backed, Christian” candidate is clearly not a Democrat. In fact, his views couldn’t be any further from the party’s platform. He’s so far to the right of even mainstream Republicans that his placement on the Democratic ballot would make for a mystifying voting experience for liberals come Election Day.
All of this is still speculative, since it’s not even clear yet whether Halvorson would accept the nomination and run on the Democratic ticket if the vote totals are official. Halvorson said he is still considering his options, but refused to rule out a possible run in the fall.
“I’m not going to kid you. We are seriously considering what to do,” Halvorson told the Observer-Reporter last week. “We are taking our time and following due process to consider all that is included in running in a general election.”
His performance against Shuster in the Republican primary shows that the incumbent congressman is vulnerable. Halvorson lost the primary election by the razor-thin margin of 1,227 votes out of nearly 100,000 cast, meaning he could theoretically win the general election if he maintains his Republican support and picks off a few Democrats voting straight-ballot tickets.
It seems as though Halvorson thinks he could win thanks to this strange twist of fate.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think I could defeat Shuster,” he said. “I’m doing it because I think the stakes are too high and that (Shuster) is hurting the country.”
This must be unsettling news for Shuster a little more than a month after his primary victory appeared to guarantee him a ninth term in Congress, since his district is considered a safe Republican seat with its heavy concentration of conservative voters in the central part of the state.
In a campaign season that has seen the inexplicable rise of business mogul Donald Trump and the stubborn challenge to Hillary Clinton’s inevitability through the insurgent campaign of Bernie Sanders, this might be the strangest development yet.
In any other year, it would be inconceivable for a Tea Party candidate to run as a Democrat. But this isn’t a typical election year, and we still have five months left to go.
We’re almost too afraid to ask what else could possibly happen.