Post-Election Note from Marcel Groen

A note from Marcel Groen, chair of Montgomery County Democratic Party:

Congratulations to all of us for a remarkable victory last night for our next governor, Tom Wolf, and our next lieutenant governor, Mike Stack.

Tom ran a remarkable race, and I know that all of you share my sentiments not only in congratulating him and his wife, Frances, as well as Mike, but also in our belief that he will be a great governor and make us proud.  We, in Montgomery County have much to be proud of in helping him get elected. We provided him with a greater margin of victory than any County in the Commonwealth other than Philadelphia and Allegheny County -- and we almost matched Allegheny. With all of your collected efforts, we gave him a 51,000 vote margin. That represents five times the margin we gave to Dan Onorato in 2010.

We continue to add to our status as one of the two or three best County organizations in the State. Our turnout was similar to what it was in 2010, and we won the County by twenty percentage points -- an unbelievable number and one of the top percentages in the State, as well. As always, we accomplished what we did by all of us working together for a common cause. Thank you for all of your work and effort.

Obviously, while we were thrilled by the outcome of the gubernatorial race, we had mixed results in the legislative races. While we overwhelmingly reelected eight State House members and elected a new State Senator and Congressman, we also lost Mark Painter's bid for reelection. Mark has been a phenomenal legislator these last two years, and we are proud of him. We hope that, in two years, there will be another rematch in which we recapture that seat.

Congratulations to our incumbent House members who were re-elected; Matt Bradford (70th), Mary Jo Daley (148th), Tim Briggs (149th), Madeleine Dean (153rd), Steve McCarter (154th), Greg Vitali (166th), Kevin Boyle (172nd), and Pam DeLissio (194th).  Our delegation will be one to be reckoned with.

Congratulations to our new State Senator, Art Haywood, for his resounding win in the 4th senatorial district; to Congressman Chaka Fattah in his reelection and to our new congressman Brendan Boyle in the 13th. Brendan, of course, is replacing Allyson Schwartz. While we are confident that Brendan will do a great job, we want to thank Allyson for many years of dedicated service to the people of this County.

I also want to take a minute to thank and congratulate the challengers who were not successful. They all worked hard, gave it everything they had, and we owe them a heartfelt "thank you." As I am sure you all recognize, it is not easy to run against an incumbent or in a seat which has a significant registration advantage for the other side. Their efforts are significant and helps us to continue building our Party. When you see Ruth Damsker, Jack Hansen, or Kathi Cozzone, our state senate candidates; Dottie Miller, Suzan Leonard, Michael Beyer, David McKenzie or Marian Moskowitz, our State House candidates;  Manan Trivedi, Kevin Strouse, or Mary Ellen Balchunis, our Congressional candidates, give them a thanks or a hug for their efforts.

We are not judged only by our victories, but also by our losses, by the quality of our candidates and the realization that these candidates will make it possible for us to win these races in the future.

Now that this election cycle is over, we must turn our attention to 2015. A smart person once told me, winning the second time is more important than the first because you are being reelected on the basis of your performance, not about how bad the other person was who preceded you. In that vein, next year will be a truly exciting year for us.  Like me, take a day or two off and then let's get started towards next year's goals.

Again thank you, for your efforts and for giving me the opportunity to be the chairman of such a truly remarkable organization.