HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Four-term Republican U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta[1] is seeking to unseat second-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey[2] in Pennsylvania.
Casey[3] is backed by labor unions, gay-rights organizations and environmental advocacy groups. Barletta[4] is backed by business trade associations and anti-abortion groups.
The election is Tuesday. Also on the ballot are Libertarian candidate Dale Kerns and Green Party candidate Neal Gale.
A look at where Casey[5] and Barletta[6] stand on eight key issues, from abortion to trade.
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This is Barletta[7]’s first try for U.S. Senate.
Barletta[8], 62, grew up in Hazleton, the son of a construction company owner who was chairman of the city’s Democratic Party. The youngest of four brothers, Barletta[9] was the first in his family to go to college and studied elementary education at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. Before he graduated, he left to try out for the Cincinnati Reds major league baseball team. He flunked his tryout, he said, because he “couldn’t hit a curveball.”
He returned to Hazleton to work for the family construction business before starting a highway line-painting business that, he said, was Pennsylvania’s largest line-painting business and the sixth-largest in the nation when he sold it 15 years later. Barletta[10] ran for Hazleton mayor, taking office in 2000. In 2002 and 2008, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House, losing both times to incumbent Democrat Paul Kanjorski, before winning in his third try in 2010. In the meantime, Barletta[11] had become a nationally known figure in the fight against illegal immigration.
As mayor of Hazleton, he wrote ordinances designed to combat illegal immigration and to keep people in the country illegally from coming to Hazleton. Those measures were never enforced before being blocked by federal courts. Even so, they inspired similar municipal ordinances around the country.
In Congress,
Barletta[12] compiled a lifetime 63 percent rating by the American Conservative Union through 2017, which makes him one of the more moderate Republicans in the House. He became one of the first members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary campaign in 2016. Barletta[13] is married and has four daughters.___
This is
Casey[14]’s seventh time running for statewide office.The son of the state’s former two-term governor,
Casey[15], 58, inherited his father Bob Casey Sr.’s name and political legacy as a conservative Democrat, although he has since shifted some policy positions to fall in line with the party’s mainstream. He grew up in Scranton as one of eight children, graduated from the College of the Holy Cross and received a law degree from The Catholic University of America.In 1995, he ran for state auditor...