State Street in Harrisburg
Lana Williams describes herself as “beyond tired.”
The 27-year-old Harrisburg resident said that she stayed awake “long past midnight” to see if there would be a final call on the U.S. presidential race between incumbent Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
“I was all amped up,” she said. “I finally went to bed but still couldn’t sleep.”
Welcome to election week 2020.
On Wednesday morning, a bleary, quiet capital city arose to try to carry on with the usual workday routine, but some found that difficult to do.
“I keep checking my phone,” Williams said, as she awaited new vote updates.
On Tuesday night, Trump led Biden statewide by margin of 55% to 44%. However, many jurisdictions, including some of the most populous counties, still hadn’t tallied all of their mail-in ballots.
As of noon on Wednesday, almost half of the nearly 2.6 million mail-in votes still had to be counted, according to the PA Department of State. Under state law, counties must count mail-in votes postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, and received by Friday, Nov. 6.
Locally, Cumberland County did not even start counting its mail-in votes until today.
Statewide, 1.67 million registered Democrats voted by mail or absentee, as did 612,122 registered Republicans, according to the Department of State.
At a press conference this morning, Gov. Tom Wolf urged patience as many county election officials continued to tally mail-in ballots.
“The promise of democracy is that every vote counts,” he said. “I intend, here in Pennsylvania, to make sure we keep that promise.”
He said that the vote counting could continue for several days.
“We may not know the results even today, but the most important thing is that we have accurate results, again, even if that takes longer than we’re used to,” he said.
In Harrisburg, a nonprofit group called We the People—Pennsylvania has scheduled a rally “to count every vote” today at the state Capitol at 5 p.m.
In contrast to statewide data, Dauphin County mostly completed its vote count by the wee hours of Wednesday morning. County voters favored Biden over Trump by more than 8 points–53.25% vs. 45.06%, with most votes counted.
Locally, two of the area’s hottest political races were leaning Republican as of noon on Wednesday.
In PA’s 10th congressional district, Republican incumbent Scott Perry held a 59% to 41% advantage over Democratic challenger Eugene DePasquale, though mail-in votes still had to be counted in Cumberland County.
For state Senate, incumbent Republican John DiSanto held a 3.5-point lead over Democratic challenger George Scott for the 15th Senatorial District, with most of the votes counted.
For the state House, Rep. Patty Kim (D-103) ran unopposed for re-election, so will serve another two-year term. Just over the city line, long-time incumbent, Rep. Sue Helm (R-104), will also serve another term, beating back a challenge from Democrat Patty Smith by an 11-point margin, with most votes counted.
For the latest vote updates, visit the PA Department of State website.
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