Dan McCaffery edges Carolyn Carluccio in contested, expensive Pa. Supreme Court race
PHILADELPHIA (CBS/AP) -- Democrat Dan McCaffery has defeated Republican Carolyn Carluccio in the race for the open seat on Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, expanding his party's majority on the seven-member court, the Associated Press projects.
McCaffery had 1,566,935 votes (52.9%) compared to Carluccio's 1,401,060 votes (47.2%) with 95% of the votes counted, according to the Associated Press.
Democrats now hold a 5-2 majority on the seven-member court.
The statewide race was a head-to-head of two Philadelphia-area candidates – Carluccio, who is a Montgomery County judge, and McCaffery, who is from Philadelphia and serves on the statewide Superior Court, an appellate court a tier below the Supreme Court.
The Associated Press reports at least $22 million was spent on the race, a number that may be a record in the state.
Top contributors include billionaire GOP donor Jeffrey Yass through his Commonwealth Leaders Fund, along with Fair Courts America. Both benefited Carluccio's campaign, with FCA spending more than $700,000 on a TV attack ad targeting McCaffery.
McCaffery, a former Philadelphia prosecutor and Court of Common Pleas Judge, had backing from trial lawyers' groups, unions and Planned Parenthood.
The court has been key in major cases including elections
Both candidates told CBS News Pittsburgh there were plenty of attack ads in the race.
Some of the ads and mailers were funded by those outside groups pouring money into the race.
McCaffery was hit for a family tie to the "Porngate" email scandal. His brother, former Supreme Court (and Philadelphia "Eagles court") justice Seamus McCaffery, was accused of sending or receiving more than 200 emails between 2008 and 2012 that contained sexual content on his government email account.
Seamus McCaffery retired abruptly, a week after being suspended.
"Right away they tried tying me to an email scandal my brother, Seamus McCaffery, was involved in over 10 years ago that I had nothing to do with. That continued unabated, and I think you had people on the Democratic side retaliate," Dan McCaffery told KDKA this year.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2014 that Dan McCaffery had received some emails in the scandal from his brother and responded with "send this to my yahoo account, not work." He told the newspaper at the time that his judicial email account was "hacked."
Carluccio, a former federal prosecutor and public defender, was hit by attack ads saying she scrubbed her campaign website of pro-life positions. She later denied in an interview with KDKA that she ever had pro-life language on her campaign site.
Nonetheless, she received endorsements from pro-life groups including the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and the Pro-Life Coalition of Pennsylvania.
Democrats made abortion rights a focus of the race.
McCaffery had solid law enforcement backing – from the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police, the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association and the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association.
McCaffery and Carluccio each defeated a single challenger to win their party's primaries back in May.
A seat on the seven-member court opened up after the death of former Chief Justice Max Baer, a Democrat.
Justices are elected to 10-year terms and run for retention to stay on the court.