November 09, 2017
Nathan J Gerace for Mayor/Facebook
Nathan Gerace, the new, 19-year-old mayor of Tamaqua.
When I was a kid, my favorite book was "The Kid Who Ran for President." You can pretty much surmise the premise of the book from the title. As a youngster with an unusual love for politics, I lived vicariously through Judson Moon, the 12-year-old who runs — and wins — the Oval Office. (A sequel follows his presidency.)
Of course, even young me didn't actually dream of running for office. Well, hats off to Nathan Gerace, who certainly isn't a kid, but at 19 isn't very far removed from childhood. Gerace was elected mayor of Tamaqua in Schuylkill County on Tuesday, an Election Day already filled with some historic moments in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
A Republican, Gerace ran unopposed on the ballot, earning 711 votes in the borough of about 7,000 people. A write-in candidate campaign against him failed, as there were only 202 total write-in votes. Gerace thanked his supporters on his campaign Facebook page after his victory:
I would like to thank all my supporters and everyone who has helped me throughout this whole campaign. I'm very lucky to live in a beautiful town with wonderful people. While this campaign wasn't easy, it was well worth it. I'm very humbled by the support of the community and I want everyone to know that this is the beginning of good things. Tamaqua is a good community and it just takes a little time and care to make it better. Once again, thank you to everyone!
As seen in the below WNEP report, Gerace just graduated from high school, and now he gets his own sweet parking spot that reads "MAYOR." Also evident in the below report is that Gerace doesn't appear to be a gimmick, and at least on the surface seems capable of governing a small municipality.
Enjoy the national spotlight while you can, Nathan. As our own mayor put it, after some time in office the job can be "hard ... depressing and stressful."
