{"id":3897,"date":"2015-02-20T11:23:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T16:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=3897"},"modified":"2015-02-20T11:23:54","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T16:23:54","slug":"royer-gets-common-pleas-nod-from-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=3897","title":{"rendered":"Royer gets Common Pleas nod from GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

DiGiorgio stresses unity, DA Hogan promises to ‘crush’ opponent<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong><\/span>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"BellRoyer\"<\/a>

Allison Bell Royer thanks members of the Chester County Republican Committee following her endorsement for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas Thursday night as committee solicitor Joel Frank and party Chair Val DiGiorgio look on.<\/p><\/div>\n

WESTTOWN \u2014 Although there were early concerns that a couple of contested races for county-wide party endorsements might make for a tense night, Chester County\u2019s Republican Committee again managed to emerge unified, smoothly endorsing its 2015 county ticket, Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Having the party endorsement all but means a candidate will earn the party nomination in the May primary \u2014 and as such are often fiercely contested in the months leading up to the annual Republican Committee convention.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the biggest drama of the night might have come when District Attorney Tom Hogan pledged to \u201ccrush\u201d his opponent (at the same time, the county Democrats were nominating Tom Purl for the post).<\/p>\n

Party Chairman Val DiGiorgio did take time to praise his committee \u2014 and noted the efforts of the party\u2019s rank and file led to upset wins in 2014\u2019s legislative races, pointing specifically to Harry Lewis Jr.\u2019s win in the 74th District, a district with a strong Democratic registration advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to make 10,000 calls on the weekend before the election in that race,\u201d he said, noting that Republicans around the county rallied to help send the commonwealth\u2019s largest GOP delegation of any county to Harrisburg this January. With a similar effort by the party\u2019s committee members and supporter, he said, Republicans will again win in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re unified, no one can beat us,\u201d DiGiorgio said.<\/p>\n

The county GOP is also unveiling new voter targeting systems, making it easier for committee members to reach out to their voters \u2014 and to better target voters of all registration based on specific individual issues.<\/p>\n

Although the night opened with a total of seven candidates for a single Court of Common Pleas slot, all but one candidate \u2014 Lenny Rivera, a Kennett Square attorney \u2014 stepped aside in favor of Allison Bell Royer, who won the nomination on the second ballot, 268-82.<\/p>\n

\"2015GOPSlate-2\"<\/a>

Republicans took a moment at the end of Thursday night’s convention to gather the entire slate of endorsed county-wide candidates: from left Matt Holliday for Prothonotary, Terri Clark for Register of Wills, Allison BellRoyer for Court of Common Pleas, Carolyn “Bunny” Welsh for Sheriff, Michelle Kichline for Commissioner, Party Chair Val DiGiorgio, Rick Loughery for Recorder of Deeds and Tom Hogan for District Attorney. Not pictured \u2014 as he had to leave to attend another event \u2013 Terence Farrell for Commissioner.<\/p><\/div>\n

Royer will face Democrat Julia Malloy-Good \u2014 who had a strong showing running for the same post in 2013, but fell short. Just two years after stepping aside herself to support the candidacies of Patrick Carmody and Jeffrey Sommer \u2014 who both won election \u2014 Royer found a party united behind her.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago wasn\u2019t my time,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m a little overwhelmed by the support tonight.\u2019 She said her campaign will stress her legal experience as well as her judicial temperament.<\/p>\n

In the only other contested county-wide race, Matt Holiday outpolled Sarah Russo, 282\u201473 for Prothonotary. Incumbent Prothonotary announced his plan to retire, after initially signaling a desire to run for a fourth term.<\/p>\n

The other endorsements \u2014 for candidates without challenges were quickly adopted by voice vote: Terence Farrell and Michelle Kichline for County Commissioner, Hogan for District Attorney, Carolyn \u201cBunny\u201d Welsh for Sheriff, Rick Loughery for Recorder of Deeds, and Terri Clark for Register of Wills. All are current incumbents \u2014 and as of last night, only Welsh appears not to have a Democratic opponent in the fall.<\/p>\n

Meeting in West Chester at the same time, the county\u2019s Democrats endorsed their own slate: including Kathi Cozzone (incumbent) and West Chester Borough Council member Bill Scott for Commissioner, Purl for District Attorney, Tisha Brown for Prothonotary, Hans Van Mol for Recorder of Deeds and Lani Frank for Register of Wills. No candidate for sheriff was endorsed.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/em> will have full coverage of the Democratic convention later today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DiGiorgio stresses unity, DA Hogan promises to ‘crush’ opponent By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times WESTTOWN \u2014 Although there were early concerns that a couple of contested races for county-wide party endorsements might make for a tense night, Chester County\u2019s Republican Committee again managed to emerge unified, smoothly endorsing its 2015 county ticket, Thursday night. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[512,2425,2440,2631],"class_list":["post-3897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-chester-county-republican-committee","tag-commissioner","tag-court-of-common-pleas","tag-election-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3898,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3897\/revisions\/3898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}