Politics & Government

Vulakovich Wins Special Election For Orie's Seat

The Republican from Shaler Township scored a decisive win over Democrat Sharon Brown.

Republican Randy Vulakovich won Tuesday's special election and will fill the 40th District state senatorial seat formerly held by Jane Orie.

With 93 percent of precincts reporting in Allegheny County, Vulakovich has 11,010 votes (71 percent) and Brown has 4,325 (28 percent).

In southern Butler County, Vulakovich won 4,118 votes (75 percent) over Democrat Dr. Sharon Brown's 1,638 votes (23 percent).

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Wexford businessman Don Bindas also launched a write-in campaign for the seat. The Butler results show 82 write-in votes, but it does not specify whose names were written in.

The Allegheny results show 159 write-in votes.

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Voting was light in the 40th District—which covers parts of Allegheny and southern Butler counties.

Vulakovich is joined by about 300 supporters tonight (Tuesday) at Monte Cello's Restaurant in the Hampton Shoppes on Route 8 in Hampton Township.

In an interview, he said his first priority will be to put the 40th District back together and make the past year and a half just seem like a bad dream.

 reacted to her loss Wednesday morning.

"Of course it wasn't the result we'd hoped for, but I do congratulate Randy Vulakovich," she said. "I think we did the best we could do with the abbreviated timeline set by the administration, and considering we were outspent 28-1, according to the initial campaign spending disclosures released through July 23. I just hope he does what he said he was going to do in listening to his constitutients because that has not been the case in the past in this district."


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