Pennsylvania voters will break deadlock with special election for House vacancy this week
A special election will determine if Democrats hold onto a one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
It will fill a vacancy created in a district southeast of Pittsburgh in January, when the Democratic incumbent died.
The candidates are McKeesport Police Officer Dan Goughnour, the Democrat, against longtime volunteer firefighter and current White Oak Borough Council President Chuck Davis, the Republican.
HARRISBURG, Pa - Voters in a western Pennsylvania district will determine Tuesday if Democrats will hold onto a bare one-vote majority and keep control of the state House of Representatives.
The chamber has been tied at 101 to 101 since incumbent Rep. Matt Gergely, an Allegheny Democrat, died in January.
What we know
A Democratic win would keep Speaker Joanna McClinton of Philadelphia as the chamber's presiding officer. But if Republicans pull off a win in the Democratic-leaning district, they will be able to replace McClinton and install their own members as committee chairs.
The race will provide a glimpse of voter sentiment in the state that Republican President Donald Trump won narrowly in November. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris easily won the state House district last year and a GOP flip would be a major upset.
The special election pits Democrat Dan Goughnour against Republican Chuck Davis. Goughnour is a police officer who supervises detectives and serves on the school board in McKeesport. Davis is a fire chief who also serves as president of the White Oak Borough Council.
Dig deeper
There's also a special election on Tuesday for a vacancy in the state Senate created when Sen. Ryan Aument, a Lancaster Republican, quit to take a job working for U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick. Republican Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons is running against Democrat James Andrew Malone, the mayor of East Petersburg. No matter which candidate wins, the Republican majority in the state Senate will not change.
The Source
Information from this article was provided by the Associated Press.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
a few seconds ago
- CNN
5 things to know for August 20: Smithsonian, Immigration, DC, Texas redistricting, Covid-19
5 Things Respiratory viruses Immigration VaccinesFacebookTweetLink Follow Hurricane Erin may not be forecast to make landfall, but the sprawling Category 2 storm is still going to impact much of the East Coast as it tracks north this week. On Tuesday, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency to prepare for the life-threatening rip currents and storm surge expected to affect the coastal region. Here's what else you need to know to get up to speed and on with your day. President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric about the Smithsonian Institution on Tuesday, alleging that its museums were too focused on the negative aspects of US history, including 'how bad slavery was.' The comments, which he posted on his social media site, came a week after the White House ordered a review of the Smithsonian's museums and exhibits 'to ensure alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.' If the Smithsonian refuses to purge materials that conflict with Trump's political directives, it could suffer a fate similar to the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. Both organizations lost tens of millions of dollars in federal funding earlier this year, which has affected small museums, libraries, arts programs and research projects across the country. People applying to live or work in the US will now be screened for 'anti-Americanism' in their immigration applications, authorities said Tuesday. According to a policy update by US Citizenship & Immigration Services, immigration officers will be able to scrutinize applicants' social media posts for any 'anti-American activity.' Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, compared the move to McCarthyism in the 1950s, when authorities prosecuted left-wing individuals amid a widespread public panic over communism and its influence on US institutions. 'The term (anti-Americanism) has no prior precedent in immigration law and its definition is entirely up to the Trump (administration),' Reichlin-Melnick said. More National Guard troops arrived in Washington, DC, on Tuesday to assist in President Trump's emergency crime crackdown in the nation's capital. The troops, which were deployed from West Virginia, could begin operations as soon as today, a defense official told CNN. Republican governors from five other states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee — have also promised to deploy their National Guard troops and escalate Trump's efforts to amass armed forces in the capital. Although the president has repeatedly complained about rising crime in DC, overall crime numbers are lower this year than in 2024. Some Texas House Democrats ripped up agreements to leave the House floor under police escort and spent Tuesday night in the chamber in protest. They joined state Rep. Nicole Collier, who on Monday refused to 'sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts.' Texas Republicans' efforts to redraw the state's congressional districts in the middle of the decade were hindered when dozens of quorum-breaking Democratic House members left the state. Upon their return to the Capitol on Monday, House Speaker Dustin Burrows ordered constraints put on their movements. The Texas House is aiming to vote on the redistricting measure after it reconvenes today, and Republicans are expected to move quickly to approve their new map, which could potentially eliminate five Democratic US House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. With Covid-19 levels on the rise in the US, and transmission increasing in at least 45 states, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its updated recommendations for vaccines on Tuesday, including Covid-19 shots. The AAP's guidance is a break from the current CDC recommendations and defies HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced in May that the CDC would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women. The AAP, on the other hand, recommends that all children, ages 6 months through 23 months, should receive a Covid-19 vaccine unless they have allergies to the vaccine or its ingredients. It also recommends a single dose of the vaccine for children ages 2 through 18 years if they are at high risk of Covid-19, residents of long-term care facilities, have never been vaccinated against Covid-19 or live in a household with people who are high risk for Covid-19. GET '5 THINGS' IN YOUR INBOX If your day doesn't start until you're up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to your new favorite morning fix. Sign up here for the '5 Things' newsletter. The public is urged not to eat certain bags of shrimp sold at Walmart, citing concerns about unsanitary conditions and radioactive contamination. Her husband, writer/director Jeff Baena, died in January at the age of 47. That's what major food companies are hoping as they tap celebrities to create new flavors. The list includes popular slang like 'broligarchy' and 'dululu.' And will Taylor Swift's new album, which will be available on cassette, turn the trend into a revival? 460 millionThat's how many metric tons of plastic are made each year. 'I represent every Palestinian woman and child whose strength the world needs to see. We are more than our suffering — we are resilience, hope, and the heartbeat of a homeland that lives on through us.' — Nadeen Ayoub Ayoub will become the first woman to represent the Palestinian people at the Miss Universe pageant. 🌤️ Check your local forecast to see what you can expect. It's cool. The '80s are back. Today's edition of 5 Things AM was edited and produced by CNN's Andrew Torgan.
WIRED
a few seconds ago
- WIRED
How DOGE Set Up a Shadow X Account for a Government Agency
Aug 20, 2025 6:30 AM In February, DOGE affiliates at the SBA set up an X account and solicited whistleblower complaints. 'It's like having a crazy uncle who decides to be the cops,' a government auditor tells WIRED. Less than two weeks after Donald Park and Edward Coristine, two members of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), entered the Small Business Administration (SBA), a new account appeared on X: @DOGE_SBA. The SBA has had an official X account since 2010. It frequently posts updates and reshares posts from the agency's administrator, former Republican senator Kelly Loeffler. But according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and shared exclusively with WIRED, it was a member of DOGE itself that started and ran the new X account. Not only did DOGE seemingly do so without involving the government workers who normally manage an agency's external communications, but in at least one case, they appeared to accept a complaint from a potential whistleblower over direct message. It is yet another example of how DOGE has operated as a seemingly separate and unaccountable body within government agencies. According to sources familiar with government operations, social media accounts, as well as other public-facing channels, have typically been managed by an agency's communications staff. An SBA social media manager, though, appeared to be completely unaware of the account. In an email on March 6, he emailed his colleagues with a link to the @DOGE_SBA X account, writing, 'How did I not see this before?' According to an email dated February 16, Park, one of the two DOGE operatives at SBA, appears to have set up the @DOGE_SBA account, receiving an email confirmation from X for adding a phone number, which was redacted, to their account. (After Musk purchased the company, he changed its policies to allow only premium subscribers to use two-factor identification via SMS.) On that same day, the account pinned a repost of one shared by the DOGE X account, asking the public for help identifying instances of waste, fraud, abuse. 'Please DM insight for reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, along with any helpful insights or awesome ideas, to the relevant DOGE affiliates,' the post read. A tab labeled 'Affiliates' on the DOGE X page lists 32 X accounts for the DOGE missions at various agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the SBA, among others. 'Help us fight fraud, waste, and abuse to benefit US taxpayers and small businesses across America. DMs are open!' the DOGE_SBA account wrote in its first and only post, echoing DOGE's X account, which still regularly posts about how the so-called agency has been saving the government money by canceling contracts and services. Park, Coristine, the SBA, and its communications team did not respond to requests for comment. A former US government public affairs official, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity to protect their identity, says that it would be highly unusual for a government employee to be running any kind of front-facing social media account without the knowledge of the public affairs staff. 'Social media has always been sort of highly contested territory in government agencies. As it was becoming a bigger and bigger thing, more and more people wanted to use it, other people within a department would see it as a means of control,' they say. 'In terms of DOGE, we all saw DOGE come in and do things that they had no right to do.' There is also already an established way to report federal waste, fraud, and abuse within the SBA. Like nearly every government agency, the SBA has an Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which has the authority to investigate and audit SBA programs. But X direct messages contained in the documents obtained through the FOIA request show that at least one person did report possible instances of waste, fraud, and abuse to the @DOGE_SBA X account. In one message, a user reached out asking how they could report a former employer, claiming they had 'misused a PPP loan,' referring to the Paycheck Protection Program, which was offered to businesses at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead of referring the user to the OIG, the @DOGE_SBA account told the user to 'report it here.' 'Imagine you have a crazy uncle and he says, 'I'm going to be the cops, send me your tips,'' says a government auditor who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press.' That's essentially what's going on here. The fact that they're getting these OIG complaints, there's no long-term accountability, there's no long- term vested interest in the success of whatever agency they're at.' Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the nonprofit that submitted the FOIA request for the documents, claims that this behavior shows that 'DOGE is a freestanding entity within the government. It is completely unchecked. It's not subject to any oversight, including from within the agencies that reportedly are employing them or that they are detailed to.' CREW has submitted FOIA requests for correspondence on the X accounts created by DOGE for the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the General Services Administration, Housing and Urban Development, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of Personnel Management, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Social Security Administration, the State Department, and the Department of Agriculture. Only the SBA has responded with documents, and the SEC responded saying that there were no documents associated with the accounts to produce. 'Communications to and from the DOGE Team X accounts, the DOGE agency accounts, are federal records,' says Sus. 'They have to be preserved under the Federal Records Act, and they have to be made available to the public on FOIA.'
Fox News
a few seconds ago
- Fox News
NYC GOP mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa urges President Trump to stay ‘neutral' in race against Mamdani, Cuomo, Adams
In an interview with Fox News Digital, NYC GOP mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa compares former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams to Democratic nominee Mamdani, calling them 'Zohran light'
