U. alumna wins seat by a narrow margin

Hours after most of the state's Congressional candidates knew whether they had won their elections, Democrat Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky was still waiting. At midnight last Tuesday, 45 minutes after Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton claimed victory in the presidential election, the 1963 University alumna still did not know whether or not she had won her race for the 13th Congressional district. On Wednesday, though, exhausted campaign workers answered telephone calls with "Congresswoman-elect Margolies Mezvinsky's office." By 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, Mezvinsky knew that she had become -- by the narrowest of margins -- the first woman ever elected to Congress from Pennsylvania in her own right, as well as the first Democrat to be elected from the affluent, GOP-dominated 13th District. Previously, all congresswomen from Pennsylvania had been widows elected to fill the seats of their late husbands. With all of the returns counted, Mezvinsky had carried 50.2 percent of the vote with her GOP opponent Jon Fox taking 49.8 percent. Her margin of victory was fewer than 1100 votes out of over 250,000 total votes cast. On Wednesday, Mezvinsky indicated that reality was only beginning to sink in. "I can't believe it," Mezvinsky said. "I am so delighted." Weary Mezvinsky supporters said that even though they knew a win was against the odds, they still had faith. "I saw working at the polls that people were not just going to pull the big 'R' automatically," said Special Events Coordinator and 1959 Education graduate Arlene Rudney Halpern. "[I knew] there was going to be ticket-splitting." College junior Allison Marinoff, who helped plan campaign strategy during the summer and who worked the polls last Tuesday, said she was excited and happy considering the work she had done. "I feel that a lot of very hard work went into the campaign," she said. "I was really proud to be working for her and I'm really glad that she won." Mezvinsky said that her win had given her a message. "It says to me that people care about the issues I care about."