Clearfield County voters elected Democrat Josh Maines to be a new judge for the county’s Court of Common Pleas, according to unofficial results.
The race between Maines and his opponent Ryan P. Sayers, a Republican, was close. Unofficial results as of Wednesday morning showed that Maines won 11,065 votes, just 178 more than Sayers’ 10,887 votes — by a less than 1% margin.
“With the margin being less than 200 votes, we know that every effort in this race counted,” Maines said in a Facebook post on his campaign page.
“Whatever you have done to assist this campaign, whether you worked at the polls, talked to your friends, phone banks, [shared] social media posts, etc, it mattered and it was crucial to our success tonight,” he wrote.
Maines, a trial lawyer and former assistant district attorney for Clearfield County, was running for public office for the first time. His victory over Sayers — the county’s second-term district attorney — was especially notable in a heavily Republican county. In 2024, President Donald Trump carried 75% of the votes cast in Clearfield.
Sayers congratulated Maines in a Facebook post late Tuesday evening, saying, “the voters of Clearfield County have spoken.”
Maines will replace Fredric Ammerman, the county’s retiring president judge, when he is sworn in next year. The county’s other judge, Paul Cherry, will become president judge next year, Spotlight PA previously reported.
Maines will serve a 10-year term presiding over judicial matters for more than 77,000 residents in the central Pennsylvania county.
Maines earned his degree from Widener University Commonwealth Law School. He has litigated criminal and civil matters in nearly half of the state’s common pleas courts, he previously told Spotlight PA.
Maines was appointed by former Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, to serve on a statewide citizen advisory commission for law enforcement. He helped develop procedures for Clearfield County’s first Child Advocacy Center and later served on its advisory board. He also was a member of the county’s child death review team.
Maines previously told Spotlight PA that the county’s new judge will likely preside over the “vast majority” of cases affecting families and children.
“I pledge to be fair and impartial in every matter that comes before me as judge,” he wrote on Facebook.
