The Republican Party was the big winner in Tuesday's General Election balloting both statewide and nationally, and in Carbon County the numbers revealed voters here voted in similar fashion as did those around the commonwealth and nation.

In addition to Republicans Doyle Heffley of Lower Towamensing Township winning the 122nd Legislative District seat of the state House and Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta winning the 11th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House, the GOP candidates fared very well overall.Like their runningmates, U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey and gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett both claimed victories not only in the county but statewide.Toomey, of Zionsville in nearby Lehigh County, defeated Democrat Joe Sestak in Carbon by a margin of 10,316 to 8,544. Overall, he won the position by a statewide difference of 1,993,704 to 1,916,284.Sestak, 58, is a second-term Congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs who spent 31 years in the U.S. Navy and retired as an admiral. He is the highest ranking former military officer ever elected to Congress.Corbett, the current state attorney general, won Carbon over Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, a Democrat, 11,286 to 7,821. Overall, he won the four-year term and the right to succeed Ed Rendell by a margin of 2,136,683 to 1,783,581.Toomey, 48, will join Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., a Democrat, as Pennsylvania's two senators. He is a former restaurant owner who represented the Lehigh Valley area in Congress from 1999-2008.The Senate seat is a six-year term. It carries an annual salary of $174,000.Corbett has been the state's top law enforcement watchdog for the past six years. Joining him in Harrisburg as the lieutenant governor will be his runningmate, Jim Cawley, a Bucks County commissioner.The terms will be for four years. The governor will be paid $174,194 annually, while the lieutenant governor's salary is $146,926 annually.