Most primary elections in Pennsylvania are ho-hummers, especially in nonpresidential election years. This year’s was anything but boring.

Most attention was riveted on the neck-and-neck Republican race for U.S. Senate in which Dr. Mehmet Oz finally emerged with a razor thin victory over David McCormick, who conceded as a full-blown recount was nearly completed. By state law, any result of a statewide election that showed the two candidates separated by less than 0.5% of the vote triggers an automatic recount.

Not only was this rare recount a factor in this race, but there are several legal issues still to be resolved involving mail-in ballots and some of the technical issues involving them, but McCormick does not figure that even if they do lean his way it will not be enough to overtake Oz, whose lead is less than 1,000 votes.

While this outcome was more or less expected to come down to a contest between the two moneybags, Oz and McCormick, Oz’s endorsement by former President Donald Trump certainly might have been the edge that Oz needed to claim victory. Next, Oz is pitted against Democratic nominee John Fetterman, who easily won the Democratic primary over several candidates including U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pennsylvania. It is not known when Fetterman will be back on the campaign trail following heart surgery and a self-described near-death experience days before the primary. His wife, Gisele, said it could be July.

There were two major results in our area, one of which remains unresolved three weeks after the primaries. The real shocker is the win by relative unknown Jarrett Coleman over state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who has been a familiar face in the General Assembly for more than a quarter-century, first as a 10-year member of the House and for the last 16 years in the upper house. Browne conceded defeat earlier this week. His loss was by a mere 19 votes, so when someone insists that “my vote doesn’t count,” you can use this contest as an example of, “oh, yes, it does.”

The Lehigh Valley will lose considerable clout in Harrisburg regardless of who wins in November, because both Coleman and Mark Pinsley, the Lehigh County controller and Democratic nominee, have no legislative experience in a General Assembly where seniority means everything.

Browne, of Allentown, is chair of the Senate’s powerful Appropriations Committee and plays a major role in formation of the annual state budget, which must be adopted by June 30 each year. With Browne as a lame duck for the rest of the year, the question is whether his loss will embolden more hawkish Republicans to play hardball with Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget still in its developmental stage.

Browne was instrumental in crafting the Neighborhood Improvement Zone, the special taxing district that was instrumental in revitalizing downtown Allentown with the PPL Center as its linchpin.

Political pundits are scratching their collective heads, wondering how Coleman, a political novice who was recently elected to the Parkland School Board, could pull off such a monumental upset.

Browne’s defeat comes on the heels of the defeat of another long-serving legislator who is chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Stan Saylor, whose district includes parts of York County. First elected to the House 30 years ago, Saylor was named appropriations chair in 2016. Saylor also lost to a political newcomer, Wendy Fink, who prevailed with 56% of the vote.

According to political observers, this was not a good year to be an experienced legislator. Unlike with most jobs where experience counts for something, voters in these two veterans’ districts preferred new blood rather than “career politicians.” Both also were undone by a conservative-based advocacy group called Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania, which spent a ton of money running negative ads against both. And it worked. More than $400,000 was contributed to Coleman’s campaign alone, much of it funded by Pennsylvania’s $12 billion man, Jeffrey Yass, a Montgomery County options trader and co-founder of Susquehanna International Group.

Many Republicans found Browne and Saylor not conservative enough in today’s political atmosphere and too willing to get on board with Wolf’s annual budgets. As for the incumbents, they were blindsided by the potency of their challengers’ campaigns and may have rested on their laurels.

Don’t underestimate the hard work the candidates did in selling themselves, developing name recognition and platforms that contained issues that conservative Republicans found appealing. Both did an outstanding job of blending criticism of their opponents’ long tenure with far-right talking points. Coleman, a Jet Blue airplane pilot from Breinigsville, Lehigh County, for example, favors term limits, and ending legislators’ pensions. He’s a fierce opponent of masking in schools and opposes the teaching of critical race theory.

Another local Lehigh Valley incumbent House member, Gary Day, a seven-term incumbent, lost his re-election bid to state Rep. Ryan MacKenzie, R-Lehigh and Berks. This was one of just three contests statewide that pitted incumbents against each other as a result of reapportionment. No Democrats were on the ballot.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.