In 1992 Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky did what no Democrat in Montgomery County had been able to do for the previous 80 years. She got elected to Congress.
Robert Difenderfer, the Montco Democrat who won a U.S. House seat in 1910 and 1912, had the good fortune of running in years when the Republican Party was hopelessly divided. In both of those election cycles, county voters could cast their ballots for Difenderfer, who was listed as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress. They also had the option of voting for him and as the Keystone Party candidate.
The Keystone Party was like the “local franchise” of Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive (Bull Moose) Party. As was the case with Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential race, The Keystone/Progressive Parties drew enough votes away from the Republicans to deny their candidates wins in the Montco congressional races.
In 1914, Difenderfer lost in the Democratic Primary, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The Keystone Party was out of business by then, and a united Montgomery County Republican Party returned to its winning ways.
With exception of the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater Race, Republicans won every presidential election in Montgomery County between 1916 and 1988.
And if even in the outlier year of 1964, while Johnson won 57% of the vote in the county, Republican Congressman Dick Schweiker practically cruised to his reelection win, with 59% of the vote.
As late as 1990, Montco wasn’t showing any signs of turning Blue. That year, Republican Lawrence (Larry) Coughlin was elected for the 12th time in Montgomery County’s 13th Congressional District. He defeated Democrat Bernard Tomkin, 87,444 – 59,758.
Then in 1992, Bill Clinton’s 136,532 (42.87%) votes were enough to win a plurality in Montgomery County. George H. W. Bush got 125,704 votes (39.46%) and Ross Perot captured 53,788 votes (16.87%).
The total number of Montgomery County votes for President in 1992 was 316,024. But there were about 58,500 fewer votes cast for U.S. Congress (thank you Perot).
127,534 voters pushed the lever for Lower Merion Resident, Margolies-Mezvinsky vs Republican Jon Fox’s 126,445. And let’s not overlook Ann Miller, an Anti-Abortion write-in candidate. She received approximately 3,500 votes, well in excess of Margolies-Mezvinsky’s margin of victory.
During the campaign, Fox claimed that he was “Pro-Choice,” but said he favored restrictions on abortion. Margolies-Mezvinsky labeled him “Multiple Choice.”
Margolies-Mezvinsky Takes One For The Team
On the morning of August 5, 1993, barely five months after her inauguration, the Inquirer reported that Margolies-Mezvinsky planned to vote against Bill Clinton’s proposed tax increase. But later that day, she flipped, and cast the deciding vote with the Democrats (218-216), in favor of the bill.
In 1994 Fox and Margolies-Mezvinsky faced off again. This time Fox won by more than 8,000 votes, thanks in no small part to 1994 being a huge year for Republicans all across the country. It was the year Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” propelled the GOP to control the U.S. House for the first time since 1952. Republicans also won a majority in the Senate. Pennsylvania GOP Senatorial candidate, Rick Santorum, carried Montgomery County by almost 12,000 votes. And Republican Gubernatorial candidate, Tom Ridge, won the county by more than 15,000.
It’s hard to say whether or not Margolies-Mezvinsky would have kept her House seat if she hadn’t switched her vote on Clinton’s tax bill. On the other hand, her voting with the Democrats for the increase certainly didn’t help her chances.
Tough Times For The Mezvinskys
Margolies-Mezvinsky won the Democratic Primary for Lt. Governor in 1998, but she and the Gubernatorial candidate, Ivan Itkin, were soundly beaten (by almost 800,000 votes) by Republicans Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker.
Margolies-Mezvinksy was an announced candidate for the 2000 U.S. Senate race, but in January of 2000, amid reports that she and her husband Ed Mezvinksky (also a former congressman) were undergoing servere financial difficulties, she quit the race.
Those reports about thier finanncial problems turned out to be correct. Both Ed Mezvinsky and Marjorie-Margolies Mezvinsky filed for bankruptcy in February of 2000. However, the former congresswoman’s filing was denied. The court ruled that she failed to satisfactorily explain the loss of approximately $775,000 worth of assets.
Ed Mezvinksy’s troubles went far beyond not being able to pay his bills. In September of 2002, he plead guilty to fraud and spent five years in Federal Prison. The couple divorced in 2007, and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (occasionally known as “Triple M) began calling herself Marjorie Margolies.
A Significant Family Event And An Unsuccessful Political Comeback
Even with the support of her machatunim (her son, Marc Mezvinsky, a Friends Central graduate, married Chelsea Clinton in 2010), Marjorie Margolies came in second in a four-way 2014 Democratic Congressional Primary, won by Brendan Boyle. The other two candidates in the race were Val Arkoosh and Daylin Leach.
Marjorie Margolies, Marc Margolies, Marc’s wife and Marc’s father-in-law Politico
