Marino’s seat safe? Three-way race in 10th PA Congressional District

Posted 8/21/12

NORTHEAST PA — There’s a ragged bit of map cut out of Pennsylvania’s oddly-shaped 10th Congressional District where the cities of Scranton and Carbondale are located. Those two population …

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Marino’s seat safe? Three-way race in 10th PA Congressional District

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NORTHEAST PA — There’s a ragged bit of map cut out of Pennsylvania’s oddly-shaped 10th Congressional District where the cities of Scranton and Carbondale are located. Those two population centers are home to far more registered Democrats than Republicans, and if they were included in the district, there is a good chance that another candidate could unseat Republican Congressman Tom Marino.

But the cities are not in the district, and the surrounding areas, including Wayne and Pike counties, favor Republicans. Most political analysts and pollsters believe that Marino, who swept into office in the Tea-Party backlash against Obamacare in 2010, has a safe seat.

According to opensecrets.org, which is operated by the Center for Responsive Politics, in this election cycle, some of the largest corporations in the United States have made sizable donations to Marino’s war chest, including the communications giant Comcast Corporation and defense giant Lockheed Martin.

Nick Troiano, who is running as an independent, stresses the fact that he is the only candidate in the race who is running a campaign based solely on political donations from individuals and is not accepting funds from political action committees, corporations, unions, or lobbyists.

Trioiano, a graduate and 2007 student- body president of Delaware Valley High School, held a news conference on September 25 to say a new poll shows that in the three-way race, Marino has support from 38% of likely voters, Trioano has support from 16% and Democrat Scott Brion has support from 26%. But if Brion is not in the picture, a Troiano-Marino match-up would be 34% to 38%, putting Troiano within striking distance of Marino’s seat according to Troiano's campaign.

Troiano said in a statement, “I admire Scott Brion for stepping forward as a candidate and respect him as a person, but if his true goal is to defeat Congressman Marino this year, then the most effective thing he can do right now is withdraw from the race. Although the date to remove his name from the ballot has passed, he can still personally influence a vast majority of Democrats in our district.”

Brion released a statement of his own, saying, “I call for Rep. Tom Marino to drop out of the race for the 10th Congressional seat. As I am only 44 years old, I clearly have a better chance of defeating a 24-year-old political newcomer in a head-to-head race. While I freely admit this is not a serious request, I want to highlight that there is no appropriate response to the nonsensical request posed by the younger of my two opponents.”

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