Kelly wins 8th term in Congress
Republican Mike Kelly has secured his eighth term representing Butler County and surrounding counties in the 16th Congressional District of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to unofficial election results from Tuesday, Nov. 5.
Kelly, 76, of Butler, defeated Democratic challenger Preston Nouri, 25, of Erie County in a 259,003 to 140,883 vote, unofficial election results from the six counties included in the district.
Kelly defeated Nouri 82,405 to 36,222 in Butler County; 26,006 to 10,972 in Crawford County; 67,951 to 60,908 in Erie County; 37,439 to 12,246 in Lawrence County; 37,868 to 17,896 in Mercer County; and 7,334 to 2,639 in Venango County, according to unofficial results.
The district covers a swath of northwestern Pennsylvania from the shore of Lake Erie in Erie County south to Butler County. House members are elected to two-year terms.
Kelly has decades of business experience as an owner of local car dealerships, and he has been in politics since 2011, when he was first elected to Congress. Today, he is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s Tax Subcommittee and considers himself a friend of Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump.
Nouri had worked his way up the political ladder through various internships in Erie County, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C.
He based his campaign on issues such as preserving reproductive rights for women, health care reform and tax code reform.
Kelly is campaigning on an “America First” platform in foreign policy, energy, national security and business.
Kelly has made it a point to try to pin the region’s economic troubles on the Biden administration and has been critical of Biden’s energy policies.
“Everywhere you look, from the supermarket to the gas pump, runaway spending and radical energy policies created inflation that costs Pennsylvanians thousands of dollars more a year,” Kelly said. “I'm running for reelection to restore some fiscal sanity to Washington, to put American energy first, and to give hardworking Pennsylvanians a shot at the American dream once again.”
