PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Results have Kevin Brobson with 51.16% 364,586 votes.
Patricia McCullough with 35.35% 251,953 votes.
Paula Patrick with 13.49% 96,157 votes.
Last updated May 18, 2021, 11:47 p.m.
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Kevin Brobson, from Montoursville, is the President Judge of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. He was first elected in 2009 and won retention to the bench in 2019. Brobson graduated from Lycoming College in 1992 and Widener Law in 1995. He was an attorney in the Harrisburg area before being elected to the Commonwealth Court. Two of his majority opinions are famous for later being struck down by the State Supreme Court. In 2017 he ruled that Democrats had not demonstrated legal standing for the creation of new congressional district maps due to “gerrymandering.” The State Supreme Court struck down the ruling and new districts drawn. Last year he wrote the opinion that 2,300 mail-in ballots should not be counted in Pennsylvania’s 45th state senate district because they lacked handwritten dates. The State Supreme Court again overturned his ruling, stating that, “technical violations of the Election Code, do not warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of voters.”
Patricia McCullough was elected the same year as Kevin Brobson to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, 2009. She also won a ten-year retention vote in 2019. McCullough is from Western Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1978 and Pitt’s law school in 1981. She worked in private practice for years before being appointed to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. Controversy is swirling around McCullough after her husband’s conviction on theft and misappropriation of funds charges. Charles McCullough, a former Allegheny County Councilman used his power of attorney to take $50,000 from an elderly woman’s trust fund. He used the money for campaign contributions and the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh where Patricia was the executive director. McCullough “emphatically” dissented from the Commonwealth Court’s ruling against the Trump campaign last Fall which banned poll watchers from satellite election offices in Philadelphia.
Paula Patrick has served as judge of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas since 2003. She graduated from Bennett College in 1990 and Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law in 1993. Patrick then had a private practice. She ran for Superior Court in 2017 but finished fifth out of five candidates in the GOP Primary. Patrick has had some trouble over the last month after agreeing to a podcast interview with two hosts who frequently reference QAnon conspiracy theories. Patrick was listed a featured speaker at an anti-socialist event in June event Gettysburg. Her name has since been removed from the “Patriots Arise, Awakening the Dead!” website.
The Democratic candidate for State Supreme Court, Maria McLaughlin, is running unopposed. McLaughlin has been a judge of the Pennsylvania Superior Court since 2018. She grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from Penn State University in 1988 and Widener Law in 1992. She was a judge for the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas from 2012 to 2017 and is a former Chief of the Child Support Enforcement Unit in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.
A Republican win will not alter the 5-2 Democratic advantage on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. These candidates are running to replace the court’s former Chief Justice, Thomas Saylor. Saylor, a Republican, is retiring at the end of this year. He has been on the court since 1998.
