Many political outsiders ran for local offices this election season because of disillusionment with the country’s current political situation, including one Dickinson professor.

“I woke up one day… and there was something on the radio, something that was really bothering me, and I said to myself, I could sit home… or I could go out and do something about it,” said Sherwood McGinnis, who has taught at Dickinson for the past three years as an adjunct professor of international studies.  

When Stephen Bloom, Carlisle’s incumbent Republican Representative in the General Assembly for Pennsylvania’s 199th district announced his decision not to run for the seat, McGinnis, a Democrat, launched a campaign to become the Representative in April of this year. 

A few other Dickinson professors have also run for the same seat McGinnis sought, most recently in the 1990s, when a retired French professor ran as a Democrat and lost.  

Republican representatives have historically dominated the 199th district, except between 1983 and 1992, during which Democrat John Broujos held the seat. About 50 percent of the district’s registered voters are Republicans. Only 35 percent are Democrats, according to McGinnis. 

Knowing the demographics were against him, McGinnis sought advice and guidance from several people in the community who had run campaigns before, including Jill Sunday Bartoli, who ran as the Democratic candidate for the 199th district in 2016, and Patty Kim, a Democrat who currently serves in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives representing the Harrisburg area, as well as others. 

“It was a little bit of a challenge,” said McGinnis. “Many people that I talked to were either Independents or Republicans.” Yet he was encouraged by many of the conversations he had, during which he was able to sway some voters of opposing parties to vote for him. He also focused much of his campaign efforts on Independents, many of whom could be convinced to vote for a Democrat, he said. 

Some of the key issues McGinnis campaigned on were fair wages, education policy, workforce development, healthcare, affordable housing and the environment.

Despite his campaign’s efforts, McGinnis lost to his Republican opponent, Barbara Gleim. McGinnis received 39 percent of the votes cast compared to Gleim’s 59 percent, according to The New York Times.  

McGinnis said he feels he made an impact, though he lost. The day after the election, he began receiving emails and phone calls congratulating him on his campaign, he said. He recalled one email from a woman who told him that his campaign inspired her to vote. “That’s really what we want to do, we want to see the voters, the constituents, get out and use their power of the vote to make a change,” he said.  

McGinnis said students who want to run for local office should remember the importance of “getting out and talking to people,” and focusing on issues that matter to those constituents. McGinnis estimated that he talked to about a couple thousand people over the course of his five-to-six-month campaign. “You have to be your own person because the fact that people recognize you as a person and not as a cog in the machine…that’s very important,” he said. 

McGinnis’s post-election plans are to continue his involvement in several service-based organizations in the Carlisle community, including the Rotary Club, the Carlisle Area Religious Council and Bosler Memorial Library, where he serves as a member of the board of directors. While he is not sure when or if he will return to teach at Dickinson, he is teaching a course next semester at the U.S. Army War College, where he also adjuncts. “Who knows? I might even write a book,” he mused. 

McGinnis has been a member of the Carlisle community since 2007. Before retiring, McGinnis served for 30 years in the U.S. Department of State’s Senior Foreign Service, where he had assignments in Afghanistan, Mexico, the Middle East and with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to his campaign website.