As the dust settles from the rollercoaster election season, we would like to call attention to something we found particularly interesting while going over the preliminary election results for local candidates.

State Rep. Paul Takac, a Democrat, appears to have won re-election amidst a horrendous cycle for Democratic incumbents.

There could be many reasons for this, admittedly. But we want to hone in on one possibility.

State Sen. Cris Dush and Takac have been working together to bring bipartisan aid to Snow Shoe, among other rural areas. It’s caught our eye a few times — most recently with a $300,000 grant to Snow Shoe’s EMS. Dush and Takac have been bringing grant monies to Snow Shoe for several years now, even attracting the attention of SpotlightPA, which wrote a story on the unlikely pair and their focus on Snow Shoe in 2023 — published back then in The Express but also still available on SpotlightPA’s website by searching for it.

In that story, Takac was quoted, “For me, this is an enormous opportunity and a privilege to be able to show that there are people who are interested in wanting to help… and I don’t think that sense of optimism was there.”

For his part, Dush was also quoted, stating, “We’ve got to get this stuff done, and we got to take care of our people — when people are suffering from not having proper health care and not having access to food, especially when they’re elderly and having to travel long distances.”

This is how it should be.

Our elected officials serve us, the constituents. They are empowered by us to take actions that improve our lives in meaningful ways.

Too often, it seems like politicians — especially at the national level — forget that.

There are many theories being suggested at the moment for why the Democrats had such a terrible election cycle. Everyone has their own take, and the people whose jobs it is to study such things will likely be dissecting it for years to come.

But, to us, Takac provides an interesting possible answer.

While Dush’s re-election was all but certain, due to demographics if nothing else, Takac had much more of an uphill battle.

Preliminary results from Centre County show Takac defeating his challenger by around 2,000 votes — roughly 16,000 to her 14,000, rounding.

There are three Snow Shoe precincts. Here’s some data:

In Borough: Takac received 150 votes to his challenger’s 257. By comparison, the Democratic candidates for Dush’s State Senate seat and GT Thompson’s US Rep seat received 92 and 100 votes, respectively.

In West: Takac received 96 votes to his challenger’s 218. By comparison, the Democratic candidates for Dush’s State Senate seat and GT Thompson’s US Rep seat received 68 and 70 votes, respectively.

In East: Takac received 226 votes to his challenger’s 434. By comparison, the Democratic candidates for Dush’s State Senate seat and GT Thompson’s US Rep seat received 144 and 134 votes, respectively.

Takac performed between 16 and 27 percent better in these precincts than Dush’s challenger.

There are many reasons people vote for candidates, of course, and we cannot be certain that Takac’s focus on serving his constituents in this area made the difference by itself. And, of course, it must be said that while his margin here was dramatically better than his fellow Democrats, he still would not have won re-election had only these votes counted — the bulk of his victory came from elsewhere, though these types of margins can definitely add up over many such precincts.

But, we felt it valuable to highlight that constituent-focused efforts to take your job seriously and help make peoples lives meaningfully better both may have helped Takac save his seat — and is something missing from the national Democratic party as a whole, as denoted by voters’ rejection of many of their candidates.