When Scott Wallace won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House from Pennsylvania's 1st District (Bucks County), the multi-millionaire philanthropist was considered one of his party's best prospects in the nation to take out a Republican incumbent.
Last week, however, the hopes of Democrats for Wallace to unseat Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick took a sharp dive. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the grandson of FDR's Vice President Henry Wallace, has not voted in the district since 1978.
Prior to deciding last year to run, Wallace listed Maryland as his primary residence on numerous forms and has claimed a homestead tax credit on his house in Maryland.
Homestead credits are property tax breaks for individual's primary residence.
Wallace spokesman Eric Nagy told the Inquirer that the candidate's family prepaid their real estate taxes last June, and this was before their move to live full time in Bucks County.
Wallace receiving a credit was an "oversight," Nagy explained, and the family refunded Maryland the $692 payment.
Voting recently in places other than where one is running has historically been an obstacle for congressional candidates.
In 1986, for example, Tony Hope, son of Bob Hope and a Republican candidate for an open congressional seat in Southern California, was discovered to have been registered in Washington D.C. until a year before he became a candidate.
According to published reports, Hope also had a spotty record of voting while registered in the District of Columbia. He lost the primary badly to fellow Republican Elton Gallegly.
Wallace, who is co-chairman of the Wallace Global Fund, has a net worth estimated at between $127 and $309 million. Republicans backing Fitzpatrick have dubbed the Democratic hopeful "Silver Spoon Scott."
Kimberly Burton, an incoming junior at Temple University in Philadelphia, is a summer intern in the Newsmax Washington, D.C., bureau.
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