The Shuster family political dynasty will continue. Rep. Bill Shuster fought a tough re-election campaign, but in the end he cruised to victory winning more than 60 percent of the vote.
Challenger Art Halvorson lost Shuster in the primary but he had enough write-in votes to qualify for a spot of the democratic ballot.
Shuster and his supporters celebrated the victory at the Altoona Grand Hotel. He criticized his opponent for running what he called a negative campaign.
“It was a time when republicans should come together. My opponent was self centered and selfish and he wanted to be a congressman,” said Shuster. “So he did this. You know he tried to get on the Democrat side and win this seat and the voters rejected that. So yeah it was a difficult thing to deal with and we dealt with it in a positive way and positive prevailed over negative.”
Halvorson said he is done with politics but will continue to work hard to get Shuster out of Washington. He said it is nothing personal, but believes Shuster is tied to political lobbyists and he only looks out for his own special interests, not the people of the 9th Congressional District.