Amid the presence of serious independent candidates and despite months of local intraparty discord, the results of Tuesday’s municipal election show it still helps to run as a Democrat in Lackawanna County.
Democrats of different stripes and styles dominated here, taking advantage of a considerable Democratic voter registration advantage and other factors working in the party’s favor to win a special election for county commissioner and sweep every contested county row office and contested municipal mayoral race on the ballot.
In Scranton, where Democrats outnumber Republicans in every one of the city’s 48 precincts, incumbent Democratic Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti cruised to reelection despite having already announced a 2026 campaign for Congress in the 8th Congressional District. Cognetti claimed about 57% of the vote in a crowded field, with Republican Patricia “Trish” Beynon and independent candidate Gene Barrett each earning about 21%.
Barrett, a former Democratic city councilman and former Scranton Sewer Authority executive director, had entertained but ultimately opted not to challenge Cognetti in the Democratic mayoral primary she easily won in May by defeating Democratic former Scranton School Board President Bob Sheridan.
Scranton voters also elected or reelected Tuesday a trio of Democratic city council candidates: Patrick Flynn, Sean McAndrew and incumbent Councilman Tom Schuster.
Democratic dominance in city council contests is nothing new, but the fourth-place finish by incumbent council President Gerald Smurl, who ran as an independent after withdrawing from Democratic primary contention over problems with his candidate-filing petitions, was one of several examples of the uphill battle local candidates face when running without the Democratic label next to their names.
When on the ballot as a Democrat in 2023 for a two-year unexpired council term — a race that featured three candidates compared to Tuesday’s six — Smurl won with 8,256 votes, earning nearly 68% of ballots cast. Running as an independent Tuesday but with Cognetti’s endorsement, Smurl, a political ally of the Democratic mayor, garnered only 5,223 votes, or 13%. Flynn, Schuster and McAndrew earned 25.6%, 22.06% and 19.7% of the total council vote, respectively.
Tuesday’s election also coincided with a factional schism among local Democrats exacerbated by months of bitter infighting over former Democratic Commissioner Matt McGloin’s seat. The intraparty acrimony that defined the spring, summer and early autumn didn’t abate after Democratic Commissioner Brenda Sacco in October accepted a temporary appointment long delayed by a legal battle waged by Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan.
Democratic candidate for Lackawanna County Commissioner Thom Welby makes a speech at Cafe Rinaldi in Old Forge Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
In the special election to fill the remainder of McGloin’s unexpired term — a special election Gaughan ultimately pushed for and Sacco and the county Democratic Committee fruitlessly sued to block — Democrat Thom Welby defeated Republican Chet Merli and easily fended off a challenge from Democrat-turned-independent Michael Cappellini, who finished third. Welby earned 27,793 votes to Merli’s 20,453 and Cappellini’s 15,688.
In wishing Welby well, Cappellini remarked Tuesday on the strength of the Democratic brand here and described Welby’s win as a reflection of that strength.
“I think it shows the true power of the Democratic Party in Lackawanna County and that’s what we need to start moving forward on,” Cappellini said.
That race and the special election for an unexpired county clerk of judicial records term won by Democratic incumbent Lauren Bieber Mailen were both examples where the Democratic nominee prevailed over independent candidates representing a different faction of the local Democratic Party.
Independent clerk of judicial records candidate Colleen Eagen Gerrity, a former elected Democratic state committeewoman who billed herself as the “real Democrat” in the race, finished a distant third behind Mailen and Republican Susanne Preambo Green. Eagen finished with 11,602 fewer votes than Mailen, whom the county Democratic Committee chose as the party’s nominee in the special election after Mailen secured a temporary appointment to the row office.
Democrats in those and other races also dominated the mail-in vote Tuesday, continuing a trend.
In the commissioner race, Welby earned 9,610 mail-in votes to Merli’s 2,604 and Cappellini’s 3,716. The margins were similar in the clerk of judicial records special election, with Mailen tallying 9,103 mail-in votes to Green’s 2,615 and Gerrity’s 4,006.
Cognetti also trounced her opponents in terms of mail-in votes in the Scranton mayor’s race, earning more than 68% of mail-in ballots cast in the contest. Smurl finished with the fourth most mail-in ballots in the six-man Scranton City Council race, well behind the three Democratic winners and well ahead of the two candidates on the ballot as Republicans.
Relatively high voter turnout for a municipal election may have worked in Democrats’ favor, too. Tuesday’s total turnout in the county was 44.2%, up from about 37.5% and 35.8% in the 2023 and 2021 municipal elections, respectively. There were 24,017 more Democrats than Republicans registered in the county as of Monday.
Results elsewhere in the region, state and nation also suggest a wave of Democratic momentum following the party’s shellacking at the hands of the GOP in 2024, with economic anxieties and discontentment over President Donald Trump’s tariffs, highly controversial approach to immigration enforcement and other policies reenergizing Democrats this cycle.
Very different Democratic candidates won Tuesday in high-profile races outside of Pennsylvania. In New York City, for example, progressive self-described Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani won the race for mayor on the same night Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, much more moderate Democrats, won governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively.
Closer to home, Democrats overcame a modest GOP voter registration advantage to flip four seats on the Luzerne County Council, giving Democrats majority control of the legislative body in the county Trump won in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks during a visit by his administration to the Weinberg Northeast Regional Food Bank in Pittston Twp. on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (JASON ARDAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro touted the Luzerne County victories in a recent social media post that also highlighted Democratic successes elsewhere in the state, including voters’ retention of three Democratic state Supreme Court justices, maintaining a Democratic majority on the state’s high court.
“It was a good night, folks,” the governor wrote. “Let’s have another one on November 3, 2026.”
That’s the date of the Congressional midterm elections that will serve as another referendum on Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress. Democrats here and elsewhere hope the momentum catalyzed by Tuesday’s strong showing continues.