Allegheny County Democrats, anxious about an election in which Republicans are expected to make big gains, can take a small bit of comfort in this: It’s not all fun and games on the other side, as the county’s top Republican faces an two-headed insurgency within his own party.
This weekend, Republican party members will vote on the GOP leadership in Allegheny County, whose 262,000 registered Republicans make up the state's largest concentration of GOP voters. Republican Committee of Allegheny County Chair Sam DeMarco is facing two challengers — and an increasingly vocal faction that says he hasn’t done enough to address Republican claims of voter fraud.
“The Democratic Party is imploding [but] rather than being able to take advantage of this in a critical election year, our folks decide to say, ‘Hey, hold my beer,’” DeMarco laments.
County chairs focus on party-building at a local level: raising money, boosting turnout, corralling volunteers and building the party brand. DeMarco ticks off a list of accomplishments since he took over from outgoing chair D. Raja in 2019. His committee has more cash on hand for political activity than do local Democrats, has spawned a number of challenges on Democratic turf and offers weekly email blasts and other outreach that Dems have yet to match.
But he faces two rivals, Richland Township Committee Chair Doug Austin and the county party’s former executive director, Kevin Tatulyan, both of whom say they could do better to erase county Democrats' two-to-one voter registration advantage.
Tatulyan launched his bid after DeMarco decided not to retain him as executive director. But he denied the run was an attempt at payback, and in fact avoided direct criticism of his former boss.
“I don’t see the race being personal at all,” he said. “[But] if we want to continue winning elections, we have to have a fresh perspective. We have to bring more people to the table.”
Austin, a lawyer whose family founded a cleaning-products firm, was more pointed in his criticism.
“The committee is running on autopilot,” he said. He accused DeMarco of frittering away the party’s enthusiasm — in part by not doing more to press claims of voter fraud that many Republicans have come to accept almost as an article of faith since Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection bid failed.
“Voter integrity is extremely important as I talk to voters,” Austin said. “They are telling me, ‘Why should I vote? My vote doesn't count because of election fraud.’”
‘What do I look like, Columbo?’
Courts have repeatedly rejected efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and proven instances of election fraud have been isolated at best. But the issue looms large enough for Republicans that even DeMarco stands accused of being a squish. That’s despite the fact that DeMarco voted against certifying the 2020 election results because of his concerns about the handling of mail-in ballots. And two weeks ago he had a visit from the FBI to discuss his part in an effort to create an alternate slate of presidential electors from Pennsylvania, should the pro-Biden slate be tossed out.
DeMarco denies any wrongdoing, but he said, “I had an FBI visit because I stood up for our party and our former president. I don't know that they stopped at any of these other folks’ house.”
DeMarco holds an unusual position in county politics. In addition to his party post, he’s an at-large representative on County Council. That grants him a spot on the county’s three-member Board of Elections, making DeMarco a top partisan player — and an official who oversees elections.
But DeMarco has generally spoken warmly of the election workers the board oversees, and defended the county’s Election Day performance. While he has criticized lapses, as when he strongly denounced ballot shortages at some polling places during the May primary, he said he had seen no evidence that fraud played a role in deciding the 2020 election.
“I can only speak to Allegheny County because that’s where I’m tasked with looking. And I saw no evidence of any widespread fraud,” he said.
That position has earned criticism from a group of pro-Austin conservative activists.
“He’s the only Republican with any authority at the Board of Elections,” said MJ Costello, who founded conservative activist group Team RED after “something spiritual took over” based on what she saw while at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
DeMarco, she said, should have responded to fraud allegations by saying, “‘This election was a disaster, let’s talk about it.’ But what does he do? Sides with [Democratic board members] Rich Fitzgerald and Bethany Hallam” by defending the process.
She also faulted DeMarco for publicly warning Republican voters not to support state Sen. Doug Mastriano in the primary. In a newspaper op-ed and on social media, DeMarco warned that Mastriano would prove too radical to win a general election.
“He didn’t just throw Mastriano under the bus,” Costello said. “He is agreeing with Josh Shapiro” — the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who is trying to depict Mastriano as too extreme.
DeMarco says he expressed wariness about Mastriano “because polling data told us there was going to be a problem with swing voters. That being said, [the poll] is just a snapshot in time.”
He has since called for the party to unify behind its slate, and he said he and Mastriano had “a number of conversations, and I'm talking with the folks in his campaign.”
As for complaints he should have done more to investigate allegations of polling irregularities, he said, “What do I look like, Columbo?”
Concerns about the 2020 election were forwarded to the Trump campaign for potential challenge, he said. Based on the lack of challenges, he said, “They must have looked into it, and there wasn't anything there.”
The way forward
Austin and Tatulyan said the next chair could move the committee forward in other ways as well.
DeMarco has deployed a number of strategies toward building the Republicans’ local profile, such as boosting write-in candidates in Democratic strongholds like Pittsburgh.
In last year’s mayoral race, for example, retired Pittsburgh police officer Tony Moreno secured a spot on the GOP ticket thanks to a write-in effort — even as he lost in the Democratic primary.
Moreno and other GOP stealth candidates generally have been trounced in November, but DeMarco said even failed races can pay dividends: “When you see a sign that says, ‘paid for by the RCAC,’ we’re trying to signal to future candidates that we’re going to be here for them.”
Still, there are discontents. Moreno himself was briefly in the running for party chair and now backs Austin. And a GOP judicial candidate last year, Joseph Patrick Murphy, is seeking to be the committee’s vice chair as Tatulyan’s running mate. Murphy said he saw some “weaknesses” first-hand.
While Murphy was wary of “broadcasting my own party’s weak spots,” he said the party could have done more to connect him with party members who might have boosted his campaign.
“Working intimately with the party as a candidate and in a project as big as a county judgeship, I know a lot about what's going on here,” he said.
Added Tatulyan: “Our committee members have asked, what are you going to be doing as far as fundraising? What are you going to be doing as far as outreach? What are you going to be doing as far as growing our committee membership?”
As the committee’s former executive director, Tatulyan often appeared at party gatherings on the local level — appearances DeMarco, as chair, typically does not make. Both Austin and DeMarco say Tatulyan is seeking the chair to restore himself to his paid job as executive director. Tatulyan denies that: “I’m not doing this to get my old job back. I’m doing this to move the party forward.”
But he said his field experience would give him an edge as chair. The way to grow the party, he said, is “by having conversations … inviting them to events, ensuring they have a purpose in this party.”
No one does polling on county chair races, but DeMarco has shown he still has support. Candidates for chair need to have nominations signed by at least 50 committee people: DeMarco garnered three times that, and his 150 signatures were far more than Austin’s 111 or Tatulyan’s 66.
Going into the vote, DeMarco is philosophical. “Your audience will probably be overjoyed,” he said, “to hear that there are as many problems in the Republican Party as there are in the Democrat Party.”
