Banta wins GOP nomination for PA 4th District House seat

Waterford resident Jake Banta never thought he'd run for office before.

But following Tuesday's primary, the 56-year-old musician, former Navy SEAL and self-described "constitutionalist" Republican, is one step closer to holding a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

"I can't believe it," Banta told the Erie Times-News on Tuesday night at a viewing party at Charlie's Pub & Eatery in Edinboro.

By Wednesday, unofficial results from all 35 voting precincts showed Banta with 3,631 votes, giving him a 1,363-vote edge over second-place finisher Jason Monn of Corry, who garnered 2,268 votes, in the race for the 4th Legislative District seat in the state House.

Coming in third was Greg Hayes of Edinboro with 1,042 votes, followed by Joe Cancilla with 759 votes; Jennifer Lesher with 689 votes; and John Diamond with 196 votes.

Banta, who received 3,507 votes on primary day and 124 mail-in votes, will now face Democrat Chelsea Oliver of Corry, who ran for her party's nomination unopposed, in the primary.

The winner will succeed Republican incumbent Curt Sonney, who announced in January he would retire at the end of the year following 18 years in office.

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"I just think we got to get back to common sense again, get back to constitutional rights again," Banta said. "It's kind of puzzling that we're so divided in this country — makes we want to fix it."

'Bad representation is the biggest problem'

After 18 years as a military contractor — a job he says the federal government terminated over his refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine — Banta became an outspoken critic of COVID-19 mandates, the vaccines and the manner in which Gov. Tom Wolf and other Democrats handled the pandemic.

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The husband and father of three adult sons is not vaccinated and is a major proponent of using Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic pharmaceutical drug, to treat COVID-19. He also believes that the vaccine has caused more deaths than the virus, while COVID-19 mandates produced a country that was "no longer the America that I grew up in and loved."

"I traveled all over the world, visited several countries, and I just really did my research and my homework — and I think we lost a lot of our rights during that time and I want to make sure that never happens again," Banta said.

Banta, who frequently performs with his band Jake's Blues and who sung the national anthem before two rallies for former President Donald Trump, also believes unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Touting a rallying cry of "I am America," Banta said his top priorities, if elected, will be to "get back to constitutional rights," getting people back to work and not becoming "part of the landscape" in Harrisburg.

"I think that the bad representation is the biggest problem we have," Banta said at a recent debate in Wattsburg. "It's not natural resources. It's not our kids. It's not our oil reserves. It's not all these things that can be blamed (for our problems) that they're blaming, but it's the leadership. It's the representation. My goal is to replace them. If (a candidate) can go down and make any kind of difference in Harrisburg, I'm the guy."

The 4th Legislative District, under the new map of the Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission, includes the city of Corry; Edinboro, Elgin, Girard, Lake City, McKean, Mill Village, North East, Platea, Union City, Waterford, and Wattsburg boroughs; Amity, Concord, Franklin, Girard, Greenfield, Leboeuf, McKean, North East, Union, Venango, Washington, Waterford and Wayne townships.

A.J. Rao can be reached at arao@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNRao.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Jake Banta: Waterford resident wins GOP nod for PA 4th District House