While the final vote totals in the Democratic contest for the Auditor General nomination seem decisive, a look at a map showing the counties won by each candidate reveals a lot about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta defeated Lehigh County Comptroller Mark Pinsley, 65-35% and almost 300,000 votes. That said, Kenyatta, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination for the 2022 U.S. Senate, only received plurality votes from 17 of the state’s 67 counties, with one ending in a tie, according to unofficial State Department tallies.
Kenyatta was able to obtain huge margins in Philadelphia and Allegheny County, as well as in the southeastern so-called collar counties of Montgomery, Delaware, and Bucks. He made margins of 128,000 in Philadelphia, 49,000 in Montgomery, 48,000 in Allegheny, 34,000 in in Delaware and 21 thousand in Bucks. Taken together, these five provided an additional 280,000 votes that secured Kenyatta the nomination.
Showing why such maps are flawed and that land mass does not equal voter mass, Pinsley had an advantage in 49 counties, including his home county by a margin of 75-25%. But this only added a buffer of 13,000 votes, while neighboring Northampton also opted for Pinsley by a enormous margin, but only gave him an additional 6,200 votes.
Below is an interactive map showing the percentage of counties for each candidate. Kenyatta will meet with the incumbent Tim DeFoor in the November general election.
