With 95 percent of votes counted, Fox Chapel borough councilor Mandy Steele was on track early Wednesday to prevail over Fawn Township businessman Ted Tomson in her bid to represent Pennsylvania’s 33rd State House District. The Democrat’s apparent victory helps her party to scale back the GOP’s majority in the legislature.
Although the Associated Press had not called the race in Steele's favor by early Wednesday, she had garnered 54.6 percent of the votes cast, while her opponent trailed her with 45.4 percent of the vote — a difference of 2,637 votes.
"We have so much on the line, and this is a victory for all of us women," Steele told supporters at the Hitchhiker Brewery in Sharpsburg.
The 33rd District was a rare open seat because its first-term Republican representative, Carrie DelRosso, was drawn out of the district when new maps were adopted early last year. (DelRosso ran for lieutenant governor instead.)
Steele campaigned on preserving abortion rights in the Commonwealth, and she said that issue will be her top priority in Harrisburg.
"The first day is, No. 1, making sure that women's rights are protected in Pennsylvania," she said. "No. 2, [is] that we're taking action on climate change."
Steele says she wants to bring more green energy jobs to the district, which extends from Sharpsburg to Harrison Township. It includes prosperous suburbs such as Fox Chapel and working-class communities in the Alle-Kiski Valley.
Energy and abortion emerged as defining issues in the race. While Tomson favors public investment in fossil fuel extraction and heightened restrictions on abortion, Steele backs government efforts to decarbonize the power sector and wants to preserve Pennsylvania’s abortion laws. Today, the procedure is permitted through the 23rd week of pregnancy.
Steele became a member of the Fox Chapel Borough Council last year. She founded the Fox Chapel Parks Conservancy the year before. She has also run the nonprofit Goats for Girls since founding it in 2007. The organization offers goat breeding programs to educate West African girls, according to Steele’s campaign website.
As a borough councilor, the Democrat successfully pushed to eliminate the slur “squaw” from road and park signs in Fox Chapel. The term is widely considered to be a demeaning label for Native American women.
Steele also championed a successful effort last year to end the use of coal tar in 20 municipalities in Allegheny County, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The toxic material is used to pave roads.
Steele has pledged to lobby aggressively to secure funds from the climate infrastructure package that President Biden approved in August. Also known as the Inflation Reduction Act, the legislation represents the largest investment in clean energy and other climate mitigation efforts in U.S. history. It followed the passage a year ago of Biden’s infrastructure bill, which allocates more than $65 billion to decarbonize the nation’s electrical grid and $7.5 billion to develop a national network of electric vehicle chargers.
“There's no reason why we shouldn't be directing that investment and job creation our way,” Steele told 90.5 WESA before the election. “We have a real, real tremendous opportunity to completely revitalize our economy and restore it to the vibrant hub that it once was.”
She has previously said she would support a ban on fracking for natural gas. But during the campaign, she said such action is no longer necessary because the federal climate infrastructure legislation penalizes methane leaks at some oil and gas facilities.
Her state House term will begin January 3.
