The undecideds might not have decided the race.
But they probably gave Lloyd Smucker his remarkable margin of victory in the 13th District state Senate primary.
In the wake of Smucker's blowout Tuesday, Republicans surveying the wreckage of the other three candidates' campaigns weren't surprised that he won — but that he beat the others so easily.
The West Lampeter Township supervisor topped his closest challenger, county Recorder of Deeds Steve McDonald, by more than 2-1. He won the city of Lancaster, every borough in the sprawling 13th and nearly all the townships except for Martic, which went for McDonald.
Going into Tuesday, most analysts expected the race to be close, with either Smucker or former county commissioner Paul Thibault the likely winner. But polling hints that undecided voters, making late decisions, broke nearly as a group for Smucker.
Smucker supporters cited his fundraising, his organization and his endorsements by key legislators in the days before the primary as key to the victory.
To an extent, Thibault's campaign agreed, but consultant Scott Migli is more inclined to blame a drumbeat of Smucker-funded TV ads that criticized Thibault's record as commissioner.
"Money and the negative campaign really did bring us down," Migli said.
"Anecdotally, I really think people made their decisions the last seven to five days — even the last three days," said McDonald's spokesman, Seth Wimer. And that's when Smucker was blanketing the airwaves with ads, Wimer pointed out.
Smucker thinks his backing by lawmakers, including retiring 13th District incumbent Gib E. Armstrong, plus his small-business background and his reform message, resonated with voters.
Now, he's looking ahead to a Nov. 4 race against Democrat Jose Urdaneta, who outpolled all four Republicans combined Tuesday.
"I think they all ran a great race; they were all in it for the right reasons," Smucker said of his opponents. "I have a lot of respect for each of them and hope to have their support."
Sweeping numbersEarly Tuesday, Armstrong gave a friend his prediction: Smucker 44 percent, Thibault 33 percent, McDonald 22 percent.
He was close on Smucker, who came in at 47.7 percent — but McDonald finished second, at 22.3 percent, and Thibault was third, at 21.3. Businessman Bill Neff got 8.7 percent.
McDonald, who lagged Smucker and Thibault in fundraising, was the other surprise of the day. He ended in second place, about 250 votes ahead of Thibault.
"That is something that none of the polls showed," Migli said.
But it hardly mattered; Smucker's advantage was overwhelming from the first sets of returns the Thibault campaign got Tuesday night at the candidate's Lancaster Township home.
"The first number came in, one of the Manheim Township precincts, and we knew at that point it was going to be bad," Migli said. "We watched two more from Manheim Township come in, plus Quarryville borough. At that point we pulled Paul upstairs and said it wasn't going to happen."
"We were really pleased that we did well in every area," Smucker said, even in Manheim Township, which "we thought would be a little more split. We ended up winning every poll with the exception of one."
Smucker dominated in the deep southern end, originally felt to be Thibault territory — although McDonald wound up doing better in many of the southern-end townships. Wimer said the numbers showed the fruit of the "southern and western" strategy that McDonald had employed.
"I always said we'd do better than people expected," Wimer quipped last week. "I was hoping that meant we'd win."
The problem with that strategy, though, is that the southern end no longer is a deep well of votes in the 13th. Population growth means that the key territories to win are Lampeter-Strasburg and Manheim Township, and in both suburban areas, Smucker won by big margins.
In Manheim Township, he got 2,080 votes to 1,458 for Thibault and 917 for McDonald. In West Lampeter Township, Smucker's home turf, he crushed the opposition, 1,781 to 563 for Thibault and 406 for McDonald.
Even Smucker said he was surprised by the numbers.
"It was so clear that Smucker had it," Migli said. "It wasn't just a matter of geography or demographics. It was the first time, I think, that we've been outspent."
Dollars did it?Indeed, money played a key role in the race. In the pre-primary reporting period, Smucker brought in $246,784, compared with $159,026 for Thibault and $50,508 for McDonald. Between April 11 and the primary, Smucker also raised at least $90,000 in contributions of $500 or more that had to be reported within 24 hours.
While $121,060 of the $246,784, and part of the $90,000, was his own money, the source of the funds didn't matter when it came to paying for TV airtime.
"Smucker outraised probably by $100,000 to $120,000, most of which is obviously his own money," Migli said. "We didn't have funds to respond."
Neff, who left shortly before the primary for a church trip to Fatima, Portugal, said in a statement that he spent about $3.77 per voter, while Smucker "spent almost 10 times that amount. I feel we can hold our heads high in spite of losing this battle."
Thibault's campaign thinks the negative ads, portraying Thibault's record as big-spending, turned the campaign in Smucker's favor.
"Three-and-a-half weeks of negative TV ads," Migli said. "We steadily watched our numbers [go down], from, really, a 20-point lead six weeks out down to almost a statistical dead heat going into this."
Smucker said his own polling two weeks before the primary showed him up by 14 points. Then, he said, "we were attacked on a number of issues, and I wasn't sure — I didn't have a good feeling how voters would respond."
"Not only did we keep that margin," he said, "but [we] gained most of the undecided voters at that point." Almost all of them, in fact.
Migli said Thibault's polls showed that most of the undecided voters were "self-identified very conservative," and that group is "just not an area Paul's going to do well with."
Wimer also thinks Smucker's air war made the difference, "which surprises me. … I thought the mail would have the bigger impact."
But Smucker also got a boost from a traditional campaign tactic —endorsements.
Near the end of the campaign, Armstrong threw his support to Smucker as his successor. State Reps. Scott Boyd of the 43rd District, John Bear of the 97th, Gordon Denlinger of the 99th and Tom Creighton of the 37th joined Armstrong.
Smucker's consultant, Jason Ercole, said before the primary that for undecided voters, endorsements are critically influential.
Armstrong said after he made a round of phone calls for Smucker, he began getting return calls from voters who thanked him for helping them make up their minds.
Smucker also may have gotten an unintended lift from a controversy over a major source of his funding —members of the Keystone chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors. Thibault's campaign criticized him for being in the pocket of the construction industry.
The 700-plus ABC member firms, Smucker said, "aren't really your big developers and builders. … They employ a lot of people. I do think that may have, in the end, helped us."
Bringing them togetherNow, the task for Smucker is unifying a split party, particularly in the face of a worrisome Democratic challenge in the fall.
It won't be simple. The other campaigns were uniformly displeased with the conduct of some Smucker volunteers throughout the primary season.
On primary day, the Neff campaign filed complaints with the county and state elections bureaus after a confrontation with Smucker supporters at the Brethren Village polling place in Manheim Township, according to Neff's consultant, Shelley Castetter.
As a result of the incident, Brethren Village security forced Neff's poll workers to move his campaign truck off the grounds, and that, Castetter said, discriminated against Neff's right to campaign and the free-speech rights of his volunteers.
McDonald's wife, Lisa McDonald, also wrote a letter to the editor last week criticizing a Smucker poll watcher, Clark Regitz, for what she described as "shameful" behavior toward her 15-year-old son, Donovan, at the Manheim Township 15th District poll on primary day.
"I personally will not be supporting Lloyd Smucker in the general election," Lisa McDonald wrote.
Regitz, however, said Donovan McDonald was making critical comments about Smucker all day, and Regitz just replied to the teenager. Smucker wasn't aware of the 15th District incident but said others at Brethren Village supported his workers' account.
As for complaints about his team throughout the campaign, Smucker said, "There was absolutely no basis of truth in that whatsoever."
"You win some, you lose some, and we just hope Lloyd does a good job for us," Migli said.
Smucker said he will be reaching out to his opponents, not only for help in the 13th District race but in the presidential election.
With Democrats on the rise in Lancaster County and a hot presidential race motivating their turnout, even the 13th could be more competitive than usual.
Urdaneta, the unopposed Democratic nominee, got 24,294 votes in Lancaster and York counties, while the four Republicans combined drew 23,546.
"We think the 13th is very, very winnable," county Democratic Chairman Bruce Beardsley said.
Armstrong, though, said Smucker will be a natural fit in the Senate with the other Lancaster County senator, Mike Brubaker of the 36th District.
"You can't get much more Lancaster County than Smucker and Brubaker," Armstrong said.
Helen Colwell Adams is a Sunday News staff writer. E-mail her at hcolwell@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-4962.
