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PennDems Canvassing

With Election Day in hindsight, student political groups are now able to look back at the past 19 months of campaigning — and forward to the next election cycle.

Following Tuesday’s midterm election, Republicans are projected to have a net gain of 60 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, giving them 239 total seats.

In the Senate, Republican control is expected to extend to six new seats, 47 seats to Democrats’ 53.

Pennsylvania’s Republican senatorial candidate Pat Toomey defeated Democratic opponent Joe Sestak by a margin of about 80,000 votes — putting him two points ahead. Pennsylvanian Republicans also won the governor’s seat with candidate Tom Corbett, who defeated Democrat Dan Onorato with 54.5 percent of the vote.

According to College Republicans President and Engineering junior Peter Terpeluk, the results indicated “a lot of people realizing that what they expected in 2008 is not what they got,” referring to the large majority Democrats received when President Barack Obama took office.

With Republican control of the House, Terpeluk thinks there will now be “a dialogue.”

“There’s a Democratic majority in the Senate, but they can no longer assume that their platform is accepted and wanted by the American people,” he said.

The election results were disappointing but expected, Penn Democrats President and College junior Emma Ellman-Golan said.

“I think the biggest problem for Democrats this year is to convince voters we’re doing something,” she said. “It’s hard when they haven’t seen the changes taking place.”

She was, however, proud of the group’s voter turnout efforts.

“Our job was to get 350,000 votes in Philadelphia,” Ellman-Golan said. “We got 349 — turnout in Philly was exactly where it was supposed to be.”

Various news sources estimated Philadelphia’s turnout number at around 41 percent.

Terpeluk speculated that there may have been pockets of “Blue Dog,” or conservative, Democrats that abstained from voting to send a message to the party.

Dan Chinburg, founder of the Penn Tea Party Patriots and Graduate School of Education student, said though lower turnout may have helped Toomey’s numbers, “there was nothing Democrats could have done to stop this tidal wave.”

“There will be no compromises on our positions,” Chinburg said. “Stop Obamacare, stop cap-and-trade and restore freedom to the individual.”

Despite there not being multiple high-profile candidates yet, all three groups will have a focus on Philadelphia’s mayoral campaign this spring, according to their leaders.

Ellman-Golan said Penn Dems will campaign for the re-election of Mayor Michael Nutter, a Penn alumnus — which will entail reaching out to the off-campus community before the Democratic primary on May 17, 2011, after which many students will have left campus. “Trying to get them to vote absentee would be a waste,” Ellman-Golan said.

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