The head of the Pennsylvania Republican Party admitted earlier this week that controversy surrounding the state’s voter identification law prevented President Barack Obama from claiming a larger margin of victory there in last year’s election.
Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Rob Gleason’s comments came Wednesday during an interview with the Pennsylvania Cable Network. He was asked if the attention generated by the new law, which wasn’t in effect last November, had an effect on the election.
“Yeah, I think a little bit. We probably had a better election. Think about this, we cut Obama by five percent, which was big. A lot of people lost sight of that. He won, he beat McCain by 10 percent, he only beat Romney by five percent. I think that probably voter ID helped a bit in that.”
Gleason’s comment immediately called to mind remarks made by Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R). In a moment of candor at a Republican State Committee meeting last summer, Turzai said the voter ID law was “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party clipped Gleason’s response:
