Another Dem targets McGarrigle
Tanner Rouse seeks Dem nod in 26th District Senate race
UPPER DARBY » Another Democrat has thrown their hat in the ring to challenge state Sen. Thomas McGarrigle for his seat in the state’s 26th senatorial district this November.
Former Philadelphia prosecutor Tanner Rouse officially kicked off his campaign on Friday evening with a packed house of supporters at the American Legion Post 214 in Upper Darby. Rouse, 34, of Upper Providence, got the inkling to run for office when his 1-year-old son Will was born in 2016.
“My son will ask someday when these horrors are going on and people were being treated horribly by our (GOP-led) government, ‘What did you do to stop it?’” said Rouse. “And so (running for office) is what I’m doing. This is what I’m doing with all of you.”
Rouse was met with great applause by his fellow party members. State Sens. Sharif Street, D-3, and Anthony Williams, D-8, both of Philadelphia, were at the event to endorse Rouse’s campaign run.
“I think he understands family values and the values of a community,” said Street. “It’s important that we have people who are going to run and stand up for the values of regular people.” As a Philadelphia assistant district attorney in the homicide division for seven years, Rouse said he always worked to do the right thing in that position. He said that was a mandate he fell in love with and was proud to have connected with and worked for victims and their families. He added that he was fighting just one injustice against those people among all other problems they had to work against.
Rouse said if he wanted to help out more, he had to do more than go to court every day.
“I needed to fight back against what we saw increasingly from our government; the government in this country keeping people down,” he said. “What I saw when I looked around here in Delaware County where my wife (Ursula) and I always wanted to raise our family, were legislators in the state Senate who did not represent our values. To me, that is what a legislator is; to represent the values and the hearts of the people who elect you.”
He went on to claim that incumbent Republican McGarrigle doesn’t lead as a state lawmaker.
If he becomes the Democrats’ nominee in the May primary, Rouse said he will focus his campaign on reforming the criminal justice system, dealing more aggressively with the opioid crisis and improving the education system.
“That’s what we have a lot of committed people working for and I think we can do all of these things,” he said.
As he congratulated the party’s efforts to sweep county-level and municipal-level offices races in the 2017 municipal elections, he isn’t going to rest on the alleged “Trumpism” – people voting against President Donald Trump and the Re-
publican platform after his first year in office – that led to many Democratic victories to fuel his campaign.
“We’re not counting on a wave,” he said. “This is going to be a really hard race, we’re going to work really hard.
We are not rolling into this thinking we’re going to ride it on through. We’re working hard to make sure our supporters come out.”
Rouse will have to beat another Democratic challenger in Swarthmore Mayor Tim Kearney, and any other candidates who may choose to run, in the May primaries. As of Friday, Rouse is reported to be the most financially backed Democratic challenger
in the state with approximately $400,000 in the coffers.
Pennsylvania State Senate District 26 covers 18 municipalities in Delaware County and Easttown and Willistown townships in Chester County.
McGarrigle, a former Springfield Township commissioner and county councilman, has served in the state Senate since 2014. He won election after longtime Republican Sen. Ted Erickson retired.