Dems carried large Lackawanna County registration advantage into election

Democrats carried a substantial Lackawanna County voter registration advantage into Tuesday’s municipal election amid a schism marked by months of party infighting at the local level.

Races on the ballot included the special election contest to fill the remainder of former Democratic Commissioner Matt McGloin’s unexpired term running into early January 2028. The dynamic of that race between Democrat Thom Welby of Scranton, Republican Chet Merli of Blakely and independent candidate Michael Cappellini of Jessup was colored by legal fights and verbal bouts between Democrats over who should fill the seat and how it should be filled.

What began before Democratic Commissioner Brenda Sacco accepted a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy last month, and what has continued since, can be described as a Democratic civil war. Its chief combatants, Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan on one side and county Democratic Party Chairman Chris Patrick on the other, represent different local Democratic factions.

The factional nature of the party locally is also evidenced by endorsements in the race. Gaughan, the sitting Democratic commissioner, and Democratic state Reps. Kyle Mullins and Kyle Donahue, all endorsed the independent candidate for commissioner, Cappellini, over Welby, the county Democratic Committee’s nominee and a former Democratic state representative.

Otherwise a Democrat, Cappellini characterized his independent campaign as an alternative for voters fed up with “old-guard politics.”

Democratic stalwart Colleen Eagen Gerrity also switched to independent to challenge appointed Democratic incumbent Clerk of Judicial Records Lauren Bieber Mailen and Republican Susanne Preambo Green in Tuesday’s special election for the county row office. Mailen, appointed to the position in early September under the same process that saw Sacco secure the temporary commissioner appointment, was the county Democratic Committee’s nominated candidate in the special election, but Gerrity billed herself as the “real Democrat” in the race.

A group of discontented Democrats pushing for leadership change at the county party level protested in September outside the meeting where the county Democratic Committee chose Welby and Mailen as the party’s candidates in the commissioner and clerk of judicial records special elections.

Signs of a factional Democratic divide were also evident in the race for Scranton mayor, where Democratic incumbent Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti, running against Republican Patricia “Trish” Beynon, also faced a serious independent challenge from former Scranton Sewer Authority Executive Director Gene Barrett. Cognetti easily defeated Democratic former Scranton School Board President Bob Sheridan in the May primary, earning more than 75% of the primary vote.

Barrett entertained a run for mayor in the Democratic primary, but opted to run as an independent instead.

Cognetti herself switched from Democrat to independent for the 2019 special election to fill the unexpired term of corrupt former Democratic Mayor Bill Courtright, which she comfortably won to become the city’s first female mayor. She criticized at the time the city Democratic Committee’s closed-door nominating process that resulted in attorney Chris Cullen securing the party’s nomination for mayor in the 2019 special election.

Cognetti successfully sought reelection as a Democrat in 2021.

Asked last week, none of the Democratic candidates for city council in Tuesday’s election — incumbent Councilman Tom Schuster, Patrick Flynn and Sean McAndrew, who also secured a Republican nomination via primary write-in votes — would say who they planned to vote for in the mayor race. Neither would council candidate Virgil Argenta, who lost in the Democratic primary but earned enough GOP write-in votes to secure a Republican nomination.

Cognetti endorsed only one council candidate, independent incumbent council President Gerald Smurl, who launched his independent run after withdrawing from the Democratic primary over problems with his candidate-filing petitions. Smurl, for his part, said he was voting for Cognetti.

Amid the broader dynamics among local Democrats, state voter registration statistics updated Monday showed Lackawanna County remained the region’s lone Democratic stronghold, with registered Democrats outnumbering registered Republicans 76,189 to 52,172. That’s a difference of 24,017, down slightly from the 24,706-registered-voter advantage Democrats maintained in Lackawanna in early June.

It comes as the registration advantage Republicans gained last year in neighboring Luzerne County continues to grow. The GOP advantage there stood at 6,976 as of Monday — 91,099 registered Republicans compared to 84,123 registered Democrats — up modestly from 6,226 on June 2. Democrats had held the registration advantage in Luzerne County since the early 1970s before Republicans flipped it in their favor in September 2024.

Monroe County is currently the only other county in the region where Democrats maintain a registration advantage: 48,039 registered Democrats as of Monday compared to 42,999 Republicans. The region’s other more rural counties remain reliably red.

Voters are free agents, with Democrats sometimes voting for Republicans and vice versa. A voter registration advantage in a county doesn’t necessarily guarantee electoral success for candidates belonging to the party that holds the advantage. The county and region are also home to many registered voters who aren’t affiliated with either major party.

But a widening Democratic schism in Lackawanna County, an invaluable stronghold for Democrats in statewide and federal races, could have implications in future elections.

In next year’s Congressional midterm elections, for example, Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp. will seek to defend his seat as Democrats attempt to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the GOP.

Cognetti officially launched her congressional campaign for the seat in early September, amid her mayoral reelection campaign. It came after retired state administrative officer Francis McHale, a self-described “pro-life Democrat” from Scranton, announced in August his plans to enter the Democratic primary with an ultimate goal of unseating Bresnahan.

It’s also possible other Democratic candidates emerge ahead of next year’s primary.

Time will tell if local Democrats who may be divided on certain issues, governing styles or personalities at the municipal or county levels will come together to effectively rally behind candidates in state, statewide or federal contests. The 2026 midterms may be that test, with Bresnahan recently picking up President Donald Trump’s endorsement for reelection in the 8th Congressional District that includes all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike and parts of Monroe and Luzerne counties.

Democrats maintain a modest registration advantage in the district, which is home to about 219,840 registered Democrats, 207,362 registered Republicans and more than 85,000 registered voters who don’t belong to either party, state data shows.