Liz Hanbidge Defeats Michelle Rupp In 61st District

BLUE BELL, PA — While the race for the 61st legislative district in the Whitpain and Lower Gwynedd areas looks a bit closer than recent years, incumbent State Rep. Liz Hanbidge has held on to her seat and defeated Republican Michelle Rupp.

With only a small number of mail-in ballots to be counted, Hanbidge has 24,364 votes to Rupp's 15,869.

It was part of a broad swath of Montgomery County Democratic victories in the state legislature Tuesday.

12:25 a.m.

Hanbidge: 17,354

Rupp: 10,986

11:02 p.m.

Hanbidge's lead has doubled, and looks to be commanding, heading into the home stretch of election night.

• Hanbidge: 9,357
• Rupp: 5,266

9:47 p.m.

Across Montgomery County, 23 precincts have reported in, and 16,166 total in person votes have been tallied. Meanwhile, 99,527 mail-in ballots have been tallied, out of 171,347 received.

Minimal votes have been tabulated in the 61st, where Hanbidge has a decisive early lead:

• Hanbidge: 3,887
• Rupp: 1,409

8:49 p.m.

A total of 171,347 mail-in ballots were received in Montgomery County in the 2024 election, the county said. About 94,577 have been counted. No in-person tallies are yet available in the county. Early tallies in the 61st:

Hanbidge: 3,627

Rupp: 1,280

8:40 p.m.

As the Democratic lead grows as expected in Pennsylvania with the early mail-in vote tabulation, it's important to note that this will dwindle significantly in the coming hours. Montgomery County elections chief Neil Makhija said Tuesday that Republican candidates would likely steadily make up ground up until midnight, when in-person balloting is likely to be complete.

Mail-in balloting will be about two thirds finished in most of the state by midnight, officials estimate.

BLUE BELL, PA — Polls are closed across Montgomery County, and votes are beginning to be tallied in the 61st legislative district race between incumbent Democrat Liz Hanbidge and challenging Republican Michelle Rupp.

Check back with Patch here throughout the evening for live results in this race as they become available.

It's one of several compelling, historically Republican held districts in southeastern Pennsylvania that have flipped to Democratic control since 2018. Should the GOP hope to gain back control of the state legislature, races like the 61st are crucial.

Hanbidge, a graduate of Oxford and Harvard with a law degree from University of Wisconsin, is a former practicing lawyer and sixth grade civics teacher.

Rupp is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where she earned her PhD in veterinary medicine. She is a member of the Montgomery County Republican Women's Leadership group, though 2024 marks her first official foray into politics.

The district

The 61st district includes Lower Gwynedd, North Wales, Towamencin, Upper Gwynedd, and most of Whitpain. It closely borders the 53rd district covering Lansdale, which is represented by State Rep. Steve Malagari.

The 61st has 64,098 residents, according to Ballotpedia.

Past results

For the 49 years leading up to 2019, Republicans controlled the 61st legislative district, as they did much of the area.

Then, during the 2018 primaries, Rep. Hanbidge came into office as part of a historic blue wave that saw several long-red districts in Montgomery and Chester counties turn to Democrats.

Hanbidge won her first election in 2018 over incumbent Catherine Harper by just 2,500 votes. The district drastically turned to her favor in 2020, when she won by just under 9,000 votes, and she had about the same margin in 2022 when she won by about 8,300 votes.

All of the below long GOP-held districts, flipped to Democrats in 2018, remain blue:

• Maria Collett, State Senate 12th District (Republican for 71 years until 2018, since District's inception in 1947)
• Steve Malagari,State Rep. 53rd District (Republican for 45 years until 2018, since modern formation in 1973)
• Liz Hanbridge, State Rep. 61st District (Republican for 49 years until 2018, since inception in 1969)
• Joe Ciresi, State Rep. 146th District (Republican for 47 of the 49 years before 2018)
• Joe Webster, State Rep. 150th District (Republican for 47 of the 49 years before 2018)
• Danielle Friel Otten, State Rep. 155th District (Republican for 28 years, from 1990 to 2018)
• Melissa Shusterman, State Rep. 157th District (Republican for 47 of the 49 years before 2018)