WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA — U.S. Rep. Phil English has represented Mercer County in Congress for 13 years and consistently bested a series of challengers at election time.

This year, Democrats smell blood in the water and the 3rd District race has drawn the largest field of candidates since the seat was open in 1994, the year English was first elected.

And this year, Mercer County might just have a big say in who gets a shot at taking the Erie Republican on in November.

Because the four announced Democratic candidates are all from Erie, there’s a chance they could split the primary vote on their home turf, Mercer County Democratic Chairman Bob Lark said.

Outside of Erie County, the most likely place in the district to find Democratic votes is in Mercer County, he said.

“I think we’re going to be the deciding factor,” Lark said.

Making a major impression on voters in Mercer County could tip the scales in a candidate’s favor, he said.

But a candidate can’t get clobbered in Erie County and expect to make it up here, said Dr. Michael Coulter, a Grove City College political science professor who also serves as a Republican borough councilman.

Coulter, who has been tracking voting patterns for years, said for Mercer County to be the deciding factor in the Democratic primary, the votes in Erie County would have to be evenly split.

“So I would say every candidate has to have an Erie County strategy and a strategy for outside that,” Coulter said.

Lark said each of the candidates has their following in Erie, possibly creating a situation similar to 1994, when Bill Leavens of Hermitage was nominated after four Erie candidates split the vote up north.

Perhaps with that in mind, the candidates haven’t been ignoring Mercer County. They have been attending different functions and “each of them I’ve met in person,” Lark said.

Kathy Dahlkemper, 49, said she’ll be setting up a campaign office toward the end of February, probably in Hermitage, and was spotted last week at a Pro-Life of Mercer County event.

She and her husband also spent 15 years doing marriage encounter weekends through the Catholic diocese. “Through that ministry we actually met a lot of people out of Mercer County.”

Coulter said Dahlkemper could find appeal with socially conservative Democrats. He added that the candidates will be trying to appeal to different Democratic constituencies in Mercer County, including the unions.

So far, both the Democratic Party and the unions have been keeping their powder dry. Lark said the party will hold back until after the primary to give their endorsement.

Doug Robbins, president of Teamsters Local 261, said there are some good labor candidates, but Mercer County unions will probably wait until after the primary and then vocally back whichever Democrat wins.

Erie County Councilman Kyle Foust, 39, has already gotten some Erie endorsements from labor on his home turf, Robbins said. He said Foust has strong connections in the building trades industry that lead to some almost automatic endorsements.

Foust said he also has the backing of some regional unions, like the Greater Pennsylvania Regional Council of Carpenters and the Iron Workers Local 3.

Robbins noted that candidate Tom Myers, 39, was a labor lawyer with familial connections to the iron workers.

Jonathan Murray, Myers’ campaign manager, said Myers’ family contains five generations of iron workers, including some who helped found the Iron Workers Local 348 in 1922.

Mike Waltner, 32, is an Erie-based lay minister who said he expects to draw interest on his support for a single-payer, universal health care bill. The candidate said that position has drawn some attention during his visits to the county.

One chance that the Democrats will have to distinguish themselves and try to get a foothold with voters will be a party-sponsored debate Lark said he intends to put on.

Each candidate said they were interested in the debates. There will also be a Democratic debate on Feb. 9 in Slippery Rock, said Dahlkemper.

Lark said he’s hopeful English can be defeated in November and thinks running an Erie name will be helpful toward that.

He said Leavens lost in 1994 because Erie voters – including some Democrats – wanted a local politician and went with English.

“There are Democrat people in Erie who would prefer to see a Republican from Erie than a Democrat from anywhere else,” Lark said. “If they’d come out and supported Mr. Leavens we’d have had a Democrat for all these years.”