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Incumbent Tim DeFoor defeats State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta in Pa. auditor general race

The Republican won reelection to the post he’s held since 2021, despite being outspent by Kenyatta.

Incumbent Republican Pennsylvania Auditor General Tim DeFoor (left) defeated State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.
Incumbent Republican Pennsylvania Auditor General Tim DeFoor (left) defeated State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.Read moreAvi Steinhardt / For The Inquirer, Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

Republican Auditor General Timothy DeFoor won his reelection campaign, holding onto the role he was elected to in 2020 and surviving a challenge from one of the Pennsylvania Democratic party’s rising stars.

DeFoor, 62, ran a low-key campaign and made few public appearances in recent months. The Republican was largely outspent by his rival, State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of North Philadelphia.

In a brisk speech at his election night watch party Tuesday, Kenyatta thanked his supporters and told them to go home before the race was called.

“We recognize that there’s still a lot of votes to be counted, and we want to make sure that every single vote is counted,” Kenyatta said in remarks that lasted about two minutes. “And we’re in a position where, A) we feel a lot of gratitude, B) we feel a lot of confidence that when the votes are counted, we’re going to get a result that we like, and that C) we don’t want to leave you here all night as we wait for those votes to be counted.”

Kenyatta’s political director Michelle McFall said the candidate was in a good place, but that the long wait for results was challenging.

“We knew it was going to be close, in theory,” McFall said.

DeFoor leaned into his incumbent status, touting his decades of experience as a health-care and government auditor and as the former Dauphin County controller.

The Republican now has several high-profile audits under his belt, including a recent report on pharmacy benefit managers and an ongoing inquiry into the Department of Transportation’s “motor voter” automatic registration program.

The former found that a company acting as a pharmaceutical middle-man reaped around $7 million using a banned pricing strategy. DeFoor’s office said the Department of Health failed to catch the misconduct.

DeFoor has also championed his introduction of a financial literacy program for K-12 students, and his first term oversaw a modernizing of the office’s tools, streamlining work after a wave of retirements led to staffing constraints.

The Harrisburg native will begin a second and final term.

Since his 2020 victory over Nina Ahmad, critics have brought DeFoor’s political beliefs into question.

DeFoor — unlike his GOP colleague, Treasurer Stacy Garrity — has stopped short of embracing the MAGA movement of former President Donald Trump.

But as one of the state’s highest-ranking Republicans, DeFoor’s audits have sometimes overlapped with the interests of the General Assembly’s far-right wing.

And DeFoor has previously refused to outright affirm that the results of the 2020 election were fair and accurate — apart from the outcome of his own race.

Kenyatta suggested his opponent had “politicized” the Auditor General’s Office, saying the release of the pharmacy benefit manager audit was meant to reflect poorly on Democrats and Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration.

DeFoor’s campaign brushed Kenyatta’s concern aside this fall, chiding him for bringing “national politics” into the race.

The Republican’s victory guarantees that his motor voter audit will continue.

Harrisburg Republicans have long criticized the Shapiro initiative, which allows voters to register at the state’s driver’s license centers.

DeFoor announced his office would audit the program in mid-September, checking whether it was registering noncitizens.

The skepticism echoes a widely-held, baseless belief within the Republican party that large amounts of undocumented immigrants have influenced recent elections to the benefit of Democrats.