Cartwright claims victory, takes call from Biden as Bognet waits for complete count

Nov. 10—SCRANTON — U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright declared victory Wednesday in his 8th Congressional District rematch with Republican challenger Jim Bognet.

As in 2020, Bognet didn't concede.

The Associated Press, CNN and other media outlets called Cartwright the winner Wednesday afternoon.

In the unofficial count from the election Tuesday, Cartwright, a Moosic Democrat, had 144,547 votes to Jim Bognet's, 137,945, a 6,602-vote margin.

Cartwright noted the media calls of the outcome as he stood with his wife, attorney Marion Munley, and their sons, Jack and Matt, on Courthouse Square before about two dozen campaign staffers and other supporters.

"This is a victory announcement," Cartwright said.

After thanking staff and supporters, he thanked voters and joked a bit, too.

"And all of us know very well that the voters are to be thanked not only for delivering the results of this election, but for putting up with this election (and) for putting up with four months of unwatchable television commercials," Cartwright said.

Cartwright said he won voters' support because he ran on fighting for "what's best for you and your loved ones," battles that included passing a massive infrastructure bill, "standing up to the oil companies that were gouging, regular working people," and putting union workers to work.

Cartwright stood in front of the statute of John Mitchell, the famed United Mine Workers union president.

"We talked about ... standing up to huge pharmaceutical companies and enacting legislation that will allow Medicare finally to negotiate drug prices for seniors' medication and bring prices down for folks on Medicare and Social Security," he said.

Kate Constantini, Bognet's campaign spokeswoman, chastised Cartwright for claiming victory two days after his campaign sent a memo telling people to wait until all the results are tabulated.

"Matt should follow his own advice and wait for all citizens to have their ballots counted," Constantini said. "There are thousands of ballots remaining to be counted just from Election Day, hundreds of overseas/military ballots, and more remaining to be counted. This election is far from over and we will continue this process until all legitimate votes are counted."

It was unclear how many ballots remain uncounted. Elections officials in four of the district's five counties — Lackawanna, Monroe, Pike and Wayne — provided either solid figures or estimates for uncounted provisional or overseas/military absentee ballots. Across the four counties, that number totaled more than 1,300, but officials in Luzerne could not be reached to provide a figure for provisional or overseas/military ballots.

Provisional ballots — uncounted until someone's eligibility to vote is cleared up — could figure more prominently in Luzerne because of problems with voting machines in dozens of districts. The problems prompted a county judge to keep polls open an extra two hours and require anyone voting after the original poll closing time to cast provisional ballots.

A more complete count won't be available until next week at the earliest.

Elections officials in 8th district counties differed Wednesday on when to begin an official count of votes, despite a state advisory urging official counts to begin Friday, which is Veterans Day, an official government holiday.

In an email to counties Wednesday morning, Jonathan Marks, Department of State deputy secretary for elections and commissions, said the state Election Code requires the official counts to begin Friday, Veterans Day.

In Lackawanna, Pike and Wyoming counties, officials concluded the law says the official count can wait until Monday at 9 a.m. Wayne County Judge Janine Edwards ordered the count to begin Monday, elections director Cindy Furman said.

Lackawanna County Board of Elections solicitor Don Frederickson said calling in staff on overtime to count votes and provide security would be unnecessarily costly when most of the county's voted are already tallied.

In Monroe County, elections director Sara May-Silfee pointed to Marks' email as the reason the county will starting the official count Friday, but said the county waited until Monday in previous years when the same thing happened.

Efforts to determine Luzerne County's plans were unsuccessful.

Here are the unofficial results in the other key races in Lackawanna, Wayne, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties:

—112th House District: Rep. Kyle Mullins (D), 17,886, William Torbeck (R), 10,005.

—113th House District: Kyle Donahue (D), 11,983, Aaron Sepkowski (R), 8,249.

—114th House District: Rep. Bridget Kosierowski (D), 16,629, David Burgerhoff (R), 10,002.

—118th House District: Jim Haddock (D), 14,285, James May (R), 13,055.

—139th House District: Joseph W. Adams (R), 16,644, Meghan Rosenfeld, 9,823.

—111th House District: Rep. Jonathan Fritz (R), 23,993, no Democratic opponent.

—110th House District: Rep. Tina Pickett (R), 22,324, no Democratic opponent.

—20th Senate District: Sen. Lisa Baker (R), 74,177, Jaclyn Baker (D), 35,590.

—22nd Senate District: Sen. Marty Flynn (D), 53,397, Thomas Bassett (R), 35,056.

Bassett issued a statement congratulating Flynn, thanking his supporters and voters and urging others to get involved in politics "to make change in our community."

—9th Congressional District: U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser (R), 206,346, Amanda Waldman (D), 90,015.

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9147; @BorysBlogTT on Twitter.