Democrats won three special elections in Allegheny County with relative ease Tuesday night — a long-expected result that nevertheless marks a sweeping change in Harrisburg.
The wins give Democrats 102 seats in the 203-seat chamber — the party's first House majority in a dozen years — and it resolves a stalemate over control that has left the chamber in limbo this winter.
“It cannot be overstated: This is going to be the first time in over a decade that we are going to have a House majority. We’ll be able to dodge so many bullets just by going from defense to offense,” said U.S. Rep. Summer Lee shortly before polls closed.
Lee’s former state House seat in the 34th District was one of the three House posts up for grabs Tuesday. But even as she awaited her first chance to hear a State of the Union speech as a member of Congress, she said she was excited about the prospects for her former Democratic colleagues in Harrisburg.
Instead of having to fend off proposed constitutional amendments and other GOP priorities, she said, “We’ll get to move forward a workers’-rights agenda.
“It’s not going to be easy,” she added, noting that Republicans control the state Senate. But with the House in hand and Democrat Josh Shapiro in the governor’s mansion, “We are going to be able to avoid so many catastrophes that we were on the way towards.”
Three races were decided Tuesday night, almost from the moment the polls closed and the county's tally of mail-in ballots showed Democrats opening up with 9-to-1 margins.
- Joe McAndrew, a campaign and party staffer who is active in local politics, won his bid to replace the late state Rep. Tony DeLuca in House District 32. The east-of-Pittsburgh district is centered on Penn Hills but also includes Oakmont, Verona and portions of Plum Borough. Early returns showed McAndrew up by a three-to-one margin over a local pastor and first-time candidate, Republican Clay Walker.
- Attorney Abigail Salisbury will replace Lee in House District 34, which includes the eastern edge of Pittsburgh as well as eastern suburbs including Braddock, Churchill, Edgewood, Forest Hills, Swissvale and Wilkinsburg. Salisbury had sought the seat in the 2022 primary: She lost but got a second shot at the seat when Lee vacated it after winning her Congressional race. This time around, Salisbury faced the GOP’S Robert Pagane, a retired police officer.
- The Monongahela Valley-centered District 35 will be represented by Matt Gergely, a fixture in McKeesport government who replaces Lt. Gov. Austin Davis in his former House seat. Gergely bested Republican Don Nevills in a political homecoming of sorts: His brother Marc once held the seat but stepped down after pleading guilty to crimes related to an illegal gambling ring.
McAndrew said he expects that he and the other newly elected House members will be sworn in by the end of the month.
"I'm excited to have the opportunity to show the 32nd District what I can do as their state representative," he said. "After speaking to thousands of my neighbors, I think people want the necessities that government should already be providing: safe neighborhoods, opportunities for their kids, good-paying jobs and transportation to get to those jobs."
Salisbury, a small-business lawyer, said she hopes to get started right away on an issue that affects people she’s worked with for years: At present, she said, it takes too long to get a business license.
"We should be encouraging businesses, not slowing them down," she said. "It used to take a day. Now it takes two and a half months."
Salisbury said she also plans to prioritize infrastructure in Harrisburg.
Less than a half-hour after polls closed, Gergely issued a statement saying that out of respect for the family of slain McKeesport officer Sean Sluganski, “I will not make any statement on the election this evening... ALL of our officers and their families need our love and support more now than ever.”
‘We actually get to govern’
There will be limits to what Democrats can accomplish even with a House majority and Shapiro’s control of the governor’s office. Republicans still control the state Senate, and slim majorities can be disrupted by a small number of majority-party members who choose to go their own way or use leverage to advance their own goals.
State Rep. Emily Kinkead, who was out knocking on doors in Penn Hills for McAndrew on election day, said the months ahead may not mark a ton of progress “on the super-sexy issues. We’re not going to be able to codify abortion rights with the narrow majority we have and Republican control of the Senate.”
But she said a Democratic majority “means we actually get to govern — not just we as Democrats but we as Pennsylvanians.” Republican control of the House had stymied Democratic-sponsored measures even when they had bipartisan appeal, she said. And she predicted progress ahead for measures such as her landslide-insurance bill, which was cosponsored with Republican House member Valerie Gaydos but died last session.
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, “will actually have to negotiate with us to get anything to the table,” Kinkead said. “That’s a situation they haven’t had to face for a while.”
Democratic control of the House all but certainly means the end of Republican efforts to advance constitutional amendments that would change state voting rules, open the door to more restrictive abortion laws and limit executive-branch authority in a number of areas.
Such measures go before voters by a process that bypasses the governor’s desk, but Republicans can’t move them without control of both chambers. Killing the bills will delay those measures well beyond the current two-year session because amendments must be presented in back-to-back sessions before they can be placed on the ballot.
“We have no intention of moving any of those things except the amendment to open the window for victims of child abuse” to sue their abusers, said Kinkead. That measure, backed by current House Speaker and abuse survivor Mark Rozzi, would remove a statute of limitations on lawsuits in such cases.
“All the other amendments are DOA,” she said.
As for Rozzi himself, it’s not clear what the future holds for his speakership. The Berks County Democrat had just enough Republican support to take office last month when control of the House was up for grabs. Democrats had been hoping to select their leader, Philadelphia-area Rep. Joanna McClinton — who would be the chamber’s first Black female speaker — for the post, but they didn’t have the numbers. They do now, although Rozzi has said he hopes to remain in the position.
When asked if he expected to be voting on a new, Democratic House leader, McAndrew said he didn't know: "I'm just walking in."
McClinton was on hand to celebrate Tuesday's wins at a Bricklayers union local in Wilkins. Asked about the future of the speakership, she observed that when Democrats return with a majority, "we will be in a different predicament" than when Rozzi was chosen as speaker to begin the year.
At the time, she said, "It was necessary for us to build consensus and have a compromise member for the Speaker of the House. So while we cannot get ahead of the days to come ... please stay tuned to see what the will of this body will be on the date that we return to voting session."
It’s possible that representatives in either party could file a motion to reorganize the House, though the future is murky.
Until Tuesday, Kinkead said, “We’ve been focused on getting to 102 votes.”
‘Not messing around’
That focus was in evidence throughout the brief special election campaign. All three districts are heavily Democratic: Each voted by roughly 2-1 margins for Democrats running statewide at the top of last fall’s ballot. But Democrats took nothing for granted.
House members from across the region — and across the state — door-knocked for the candidates, their presence boosted by a fortuitously scheduled gathering of House Democrats discussing labor issues in Pittsburgh on Friday. Even U.S. Senator Bob Casey got in on the action.
McAndrew, for one, said the support was gratifying and “really helps build relationships” within the caucus.
Labor, too, turned out to vote, with union members taking part in a pre-election door-knocking campaign and a get-out-the-vote effort on Election Day itself.
“We are clearly not messing around,” said the region’s top labor official, Darrin Kelly, in between dispatching teams of Bricklayers and SEIU members Tuesday morning.
Republicans, who strove mightily to delay the date of the elections in Districts 34 and 35, seemed far less engaged by the race once it was scheduled. While the House Democrats’ campaign arm posted regular updates throughout the day about the race, its Republican counterpart hadn’t even noted the special elections on its web page, and its social media accounts have been silent since November.
Access to campaign financial information was spotty through Election Day itself — a byproduct of a truncated election cycle. But House District 32, the one race where side-by-side comparisons are clearest, showed massive disparities in enthusiasm.
While McAndrew had raised more than $102,000 from other elected Democrats and union officials by the end of last year, Walker had just over $4,000 in the bank at that point, led by $1,500 in support from the local Republican Party. He later added a $500 donation from an anti-abortion-rights group.
For Democrats, that money was a final payment on a majority that coalesced last year — somewhat to the surprise of Democrats themselves.
"We were not supposed to be able to get that," said Lee Tuesday night. "Especially so soon."
Political figures from all across Pennsylvania joined Democratic candidates Tuesday night in Allegheny County, underscoring the statewide import of the three House races.
Maureen Madden, a Democratic state representative from Monroe County, has been in Allegheny County all week to support the candidates. She’s starting her fourth term, and she said for the first time during her tenure the Democrats will have a seat at the table in the legislature.
“We'll have a conversation with the other side and hopefully, our numbers are so close that we’ll be able to compromise and we’ll get good legislation passed," she said.
McClinton welcomed McAndrew and Salisbury to the House, saying they and Gergely "were the ones to defend our House Democratic majority for the first time." She noted that the GOP has controlled the House for 24 of the last 28 years.
"Our caucus is excited not only to be in a house of labor but to fight for good-paying jobs where you also have the right to organize," she said. "We're going to make every effort to defend democracy and ensure that every woman across this Commonwealth is able to stand up for herself and not take any extra people into the doctor's office."
