Kelly edges Huber in Third District GOP primary

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Paul Huber greets supporters after his primary loss Tuesday evening.

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May 19, 2010

By Keith Gushard Meadville Tribune The Meadville Tribune Wed May 19, 2010, 07:00 AM EDT

MEADVILLE — Mike Kelly, a Butler area car dealer, apparently has won the Republican Party’s nomination for Pennsylvania’s Third Congressional District — topping Meadville native Paul Huber by less than 1,000 votes.

Kelly, 64, and Huber were in a race with four others for the Republican nomination including three from Crawford County — Huber, Steve Fisher of Cochranton and Ed Franz of Conneautville.

With all 426 precincts reporting, unofficial vote totals had Kelly with 15,129 votes, followed by Huber, 14,179; Clayton Grabb, 7,384; Fisher, 6,422; Franz 5,752; and Martha Moore, 5,025.

Kelly and Huber fought it out mainly in TV ads in the final weeks of the campaign — trading shots over whether Kelly raised taxes while a Butler City Councilman, while Huber was accused of sending jobs overseas while he was president and chief executive officer of Seco/Warwick Corp. of Meadville.

Kelly was confident, but not claiming victory late Tuesday night.

“I knew it would be close,” Kelly said. “It’s been enjoyable. It’s premature to claim victory, but I’ll be glad to see how it turns out at the end of the day.”

Tribune attempts to contact Huber, 65, and his campaign staff were unsuccessful Tuesday night.

The two other Crawford County-based candidates, Fisher and Franz, split on whether they’d support the Republican nominee in the November general election.

Fisher, an insurance agent from Cochranton, said he would support the Republican nominee, while Franz of Conneautville, an employee of GE Transportation, was non-committal.

“It depends on who the nominee is,” was all Franz would say.

While they were disappointed they didn’t do better, both Fisher and Franz said they were glad to have campaigned to get their messages out.

“It was a pleasure to run the race,” said Fisher. “We pledged to keep it a clean campaign and we maintained that. I met a lot of tremendous people along the way.”

Franz said he appreciated the support he received from his backer. “I could not have done it (the campaign) without any one of the people.”

Both Fisher and Franz were unsure if they’d try again for elective office. This was the first attempt at political office for each of them.

Grabb, a pharmaceutical representative from Butler, said he, too, was proud of his campaign.

“We ran a solid, clean campaign and stuck to the issues,” Grabb said.

Grabb said he wouldn’t support either Kelly or Huber as the nominee because of the large amounts of money they brought into the campaign.

“They are the same as those (already) in Washington,” Grabb said.

Grabb said he will continue to remain active with TEA (Tax Enough Already) Party activities.

Moore, a physician from Sandy Lake, said she, too, enjoyed the campaign.

“It was quite an experience,” she said.

Moore said she will support Kelly in the November election.

However, if Kelly wins the seat and becomes too moderate or leans left, Moore said she would run again in two years.

The Republican nominee will apparently face off against Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper of Erie in November. Dahlkemper was the unofficial winner in Tuesday’s election for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Third District.

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Kelly edges Huber in Third District GOP primary

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