As Democrat after Democrat has lined up to compete for Allegheny County Executive and other races this year, local Republicans have been conspicuously quiet — until Wednesday morning, when retired PNC Bank executive Joe Rockey entered the race to replace Rich Fitzgerald as the region’s most powerful elected official.
Referring to the region’s earlier “Renaissances” — which marked efforts to overcome the city’s social and environmental problems — Rockey said he sought “a renaissance of more than brick and mortar. It’s a renaissance of lives and dreams.”
Earlier policies, he said, had left people behind — and in many cases, the reverse was true as families moved away: “It's not enough to put up new buildings and arenas without the people to fill them.”
Rockey, who grew up on the North Side and now lives in Ohio Township, rose from a working-class household to hold the post of chief risk officer and executive vice president for PNC. That career path, he said, “has taught me to identify challenges, make plans and most important, build the consensus necessary to solve problems.”
The most important problem, he said, is the local economy. While unemployment is low — and the region in recent years has avoided the worst of national economic downturns — he lamented that the region was losing ground compared to other metro areas. And he said he hoped the region could play a role in a broader resurgence of domestic manufacturing.
“It's time to get the jobs back on our shores,” he said. “And what better place to do that than Allegheny County? We were the manufacturing center of the nation for most of the last century.”
As is often the case at campaign kickoffs, Rockey spoke in broad terms about his vision while offering few concrete policies. But he said he would chart a course between ideological extremes.
“Some of you might wonder where I stand politically,” Rockey said. “It’s right in the middle.”
His father, he said, was a union Democrat who “taught me to work hard, to respect people and to listen. If that sounds like you, whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or an independent, I think we share the same values.”
As a sign of that commitment, Rockey was introduced by his campaign chair, former county executive Jim Roddey.
“We need someone who’s not going to push extreme political theories,” Roddey said. “We need to govern from the middle and put solutions front and center.”
Roddey is a longtime Republican who once chaired the local party, but one who publicly criticized the party’s 2016 presidential nominee, Donald Trump. His 1999 victory in the county’s first county executive election (the county previously had a three-commissioner form of government) was a high-water mark for the GOP.
He scored that win against legendary former coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht — a controversial, if larger-than-life figure. Republicans have had tough sledding since, including going 0-for-3 in a series of special elections the night before Rockey's launch. But the GOP clearly hopes to capitalize if Democrats pick a lightning rod as their nominee this year.
“We think that this is the year the Democrats will have worn out their welcome with voters,” said Sam DeMarco, who chairs the Republican Committee of Allegheny County. “We’re not a place that likes loud disputes, impasses and arguments driven by ideological extremes and political posturing.”
Until Wednesday, Rockey had little in the way of a political profile. He hasn’t run for elected office before, and he’s been only a modest donor to political candidates. He’s given $5,500 to former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, a staunch economic conservative with less zeal than some in the GOP for culture-war issues. Rockey also has backed a Democrat or two through the years, including a $1,000 donation in 2018 to former Congressman Conor Lamb (whose father is also a PNC executive).
In speaking with reporters, Rockey praised outgoing County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, saying “there’s a reason he’s been there for 12 years. He’s done a lot of very good things.”
He singled out Fitzgerald’s work to spur development around the airport in particular. But he said that he objected to “the ideology that some progressives are pushing” — which he did not precisely define but said “might work in places like California” rather than in Western Pennsylvania.
Rockey enters a race in which Democrats already have been hashing out contentious issues such as the Allegheny County Jail, where there has been increasing criticism and concern about conditions and the treatment of prisoners. Rockey said he couldn’t provide a “direct answer” to how he would address those issues without first taking time to “understand the issues from all constituencies” — including staff and inmates.
Roddey, his campaign chair, himself once headed a business to provide health services to inmates, Wexford Health Sources. But asked whether privatization might be a solution for facilities like the jail, Rockey said, “absolutely not. … Privatization is not the right answer for something like a jail.”
The county executive is one of three members of the county Board of Elections, and in recent years, ideologues on the right have questioned the validity of election outcomes — despite the absence of any widespread fraud. Rockey said that while he “wasn’t in charge” when previous election controversies came up and couldn’t comment on them, “I have confidence that Allegheny County has had safe and fair elections over the course of its past.”
Petitions for candidates seeking to compete in the May primary aren’t due for another month. But while Democrats have a half-dozen candidates who have publicly declared their interest, prominent Republicans already appear to be coalescing around Rockey, whose kickoff was attended by notables including former Congressman Keith Rothfus, state Rep. Rob Mercuri and recent lieutenant governor candidate Carrie DelRosso.
