This is WESA Politics, a weekly newsletter by Chris Potter providing analysis about Pittsburgh and state politics. Sign up here to get it every Thursday afternoon.
It was Sara Innamorato and Matt Dugan and Bethany Hallam who appear to have finally buried the previous generation of Democratic leadership in Allegheny County Tuesday night. But it may have been County Treasurer John Weinstein who wrote the old guard’s epitaph.
“There were too many white men running in this race,” said Weinstein, seeking to explain how the staunchly progressive Innamorato defeated him and four others in the Democratic primary for county executive.
Those words were widely perceived as a slight to Innamorato, implying as they did that Weinstein and fellow white guys Michael Lamb and Dave Fawcett had been beaten by each other — or by some sort of affirmative-action program — rather than by her campaign’s themes, resources, and ground game. It sounded like the latest in a long line of rationalizations to minimize progressive gains.
But “too many white men running” has been a criticism of the status quo for years. Weinstein’s statement was most notable perhaps because — with the last vestiges of their hold on local government swept away — the white men themselves seemed to realize it was a problem.
“I don't think I would have included that comment in a concession speech, but he's not wrong,” said consultant Abigail Gardner. “I've been picturing the Spider-Man meme of two or three Spider-Men pointing at each other.”
Gardner hasn’t had to write a lot of concession speeches lately: She managed Summer Lee’s successful 2022 bid to become the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress, and she been active in progressive politics for years (though she had no formal role in this year’s campaigns). The reason more established politicians are struggling today, she said, has less to do with them crossing each other than with a failure to connect with anyone else.
Gardner recalled that when she returned to the region in 2015, “There were a lot of people who were demoralized by the state of politics” locally. There were some strong liberal voices, such as state Rep. Dan Frankel, but newcomers who wanted to change the status quo “would be told the powers-that-be just had it on lock and there was no room for anyone else,” she said.
But the election of Donald Trump motivated a lot of disenchanted locals to try to make a difference, joining grassroots groups across the county. And the 2018 special election win of Congressman Conor Lamb — though far from an ideal candidate from a progressive viewpoint — was proof that they could. That race was a crusade that old Democrats and new could join, but when it came to challenging other Democrats, up-and-coming progressives knew how to organize themselves.
The earliest wins, in 2017, elected Anita Prizio to county council and Mik Pappas as a magistrate district judge. Those little-noted campaigns tested themes that would become central to the progressive promise: environmental concerns, criminal justice reforms, housing.
And momentum built from there, with a demographically diverse and ideologically cohesive movement of progressives: Lee and Innamorato came on the scene with successful state House bids in 2018, with Emily Kinkead and Jessica Benham joining them later. Ed Gainey became Mayor, and Lee moved on to Congress. Tuesday night proved conclusively that there is no office outside the movement’s reach. (Notably, the region’s top watchdog posts aren’t entirely within their grasp: City Controller Rachael Heisler and county Controller Corey O’Connor ran on good-government agendas, but they aren’t explicitly tied to the movement that delivered Innamorato’s win.)
On election night, I asked Innamorato how progressives had remade the political landscape so quickly. Youth played a role, she said: Voters age 25-34 make up the county’s largest cohort of Democrats — they are about 20 percent of the electorate — and “Their political consciousness is much more seasoned than mine was at their age.”
More broadly, she said “The name of the game with our campaigns has always been expanding the electorate” to reach voters the existing power structure hasn’t spoken to. That work involves “going out, knocking doors, making phone calls, asking people what their priorities are for their families and their communities, and really connecting that with the polices and the message of our campaign."
Sounds simple, right? Find out who the voters are, listen to what they want, and figure out how to connect it to your candidacy.
But it’s become clear that, as Gardner puts it, “The Democrat machine was really rusted out.” At the outset of the county executive race, Weinstein’s bid was fueled by unions and others willing to write big checks. But the SEIU service workers union and other advocacy groups in the progressives’ corner have been much more willing to put their mouths where their money is, supporting door-knocking and other outreach efforts.
In the county executive race, a functioning machine might not have been able to prevent Innamorato’s win, but it would have responded to it more coherently. Even before the race began, there would have been an obvious political heir to departing County Executive Rich Fitzgerald — or barring that, some ability to clear the field for a contender to rally behind.
As it was, Fitzgerald himself endorsed Lamb at a low-key event just three weeks before the election, though it was clear long before then that Lamb was his only choice. Weinstein didn’t have a successor in mind for his old treasurer post at all. And politics abhors a vacuum.
Of course, there are still elections this fall to get through. Steve Zappala may be resuscitated by a successful write-in effort on the Republican ballot, giving him a second chance against progressive Democratic nominee Matt Dugan. Innamorato will face Republican Joe Rockey, and that race will play out like the last two weeks of the Democratic contest did. You’ll hear a lot about her lack of executive-branch experience, and about her previous ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, which backed her and Lee in 2018 but whose influence has waned since.
But Tuesday night made official what should have been clear long before: This is a progressive Democratic county now. And you have to realize that if you want to run in a primary … or else you’re gonna be run into the ground.
