Comitta Leading Runey By 15 Points In PA 19th Sen. District Race

This story was updated at 1:15 p.m. Sunday. Watch for further updates.

PHOENIXVILLE, PA — Democrat Carolyn Comitta is leading the vote count by 15 percentage points against Republican Kevin Runey in the race for Pennsylvania's 19th Senate District seat.

The state senate seat held by Sen. Andy Dinniman (D-19th) since 2006 was vacated with Dinniman's retirement. Vying for the District 19 State Senate seat are Rep. Carolyn Comitta (D-156th) and Kevin Runey.

Chester County announced Friday night it had finished counting all ballots in its possession and would on Monday morning resume reviewing and tabulating "additional pre-canvass, canvass, computation, and provisional ballots."

After Friday night's update by the county, Comitta had 22,721 more votes than Runey.

Comitta had 57.46 percent of the counted vote, totaling 87,550 votes. Runey had 42.54 percent of the vote, with 64,829 votes. The county also reported 132 write-in votes in the state senate race.

Comitta's lead grew with the ballot count. Wednesday afternoon the Chester County elections website had reported Comitta ahead of Runey by 11 percentage points, with the counting incomplete.

Chester County's Elections Office reported Thursday morning it had worked 24-hours-a-day after polls closed to count votes, and had tallied all in-person and mail-in ballots received by Thursday. The county awaited the receipt of ballots that had been postmarked on Election Day.

The Pennsylvania state VotesPa website shows that mail-in ballots were request by voters registered as Democrats in numbers almost three times that of mail-in ballots requested by Republican Party-registered voters.

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Comitta has been serving as representative in the Pennsylvania State House 156th District since 2017. The Democrat is a mother of two and formerly an educator in Chester County. She served two terms as mayor of West Chester. She's also Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thomas Comitta Associates, Inc., Town Planners & Landscape Architects West Chester since 1990.

"I am an environmental champion. I have advocated long and hard for moving toward more sustainable energies as soon as possible and making sure everyone has the right to clean air and clean water," Comitta said during her campaign.

Runey challenged Comitta for Dinnaman's State Senate seat. The father of three has worked in healthcare and has been a London Grove Township supervisor, serving on its planning commission.

"I am concerned with the direction our state and country is heading," Runey said. He accused Comitta of "aligning herself with radical groups" and being "beholden to special interests." Runey called himself "a commonsense political outsider who isn't beholden to any special interest group."

For full coverage of the election in Pennsylvania, go here.