About 100 cheering Democrats crowded into party headquarters at 1101 Commercial St. to watch as county party leader Jerry Karr again updated a wall-long tally board of election results.
“Casey just beat Santorum,” one of the crowd interrupted the results update.
“Hallelujah!” came the response to the announcement that Democrat Bob Casey had defeated Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, identified as a close ally of President George W. Bush.
“We only have 29 more precincts to count,” Karr said as he walked back to his telephone connection with the Lyon County Courthouse.
Local Democrats were pleased overall with the early results, with five precincts reported by 8:15 p.m. Tuesday.
“It looks like early results suggest our top state tickets are doing very well,” Karr said. “We’re especially impressed with the attorney general’s race. ... The other races are a little early to tell.”
Karr also was pleased to hear that his home township, Fremont, had brought out more than 72 percent of the registered voters in today’s election. Karr’s wife, Sharon, is the Democratic precinct committeewoman in the district.
“That’s something to be proud of,” said Cynthia Seguin.
“She leveraged the vote as much as possible,” Karr responded with a laugh.
Five blocks down Commercial Street, Republican headquarters was less boisterous. Many of the Republicans were watching the results at the courthouse, they said, and would be at headquarters later.
One of the judges for the 13th precinct, Clara Elkins, also was pleased with voter turnout in her area, which was considerably greater than in many years past.
“We estimated we had about 50 percent turnout there,” she said.