Democrats have a contender in the 37th state Senate District — a seat that is considered key to controlling the legislature's upper chamber. Educator and former Jefferson Hills borough council member Nicole Ruscitto plans to challenge first-term incumbent Republican Devlin Robinson in the swing district.
“As a coach, the reason that I’m running is it was time for me to not sit on the sidelines,” Ruscitto said. “That’s been my philosophy in life.”
Ruscitto, who teaches in the South Park School District, is coming off the bench after a couple of other Democrats took themselves out of the game. Former Allegheny County Council member Tom Duerr was prepared to make a bid but withdrew last year, citing an exhaustion with politics. Coraopolis Mayor Michael Dixon pondered a run but decided against it after a death in the family.
The stakes are high in the 37th, a crescent-shaped district that connects the North Hills with airport-area communities and deep South Hills neighborhoods. It’s the kind of suburban swing district Democrats need to win if they are going to recapture control of the Senate, where Republicans hold 28 of 50 seats.
Ruscitto said she’d bring her experience as an educator to Harrisburg.
“Being in public education for as long as I have, which is 27 years, I've always been an advocate for families and children,” she said. “I’ve helped kids my whole life, so now maybe I’ll be able to help more people.”
Ruscitto said she was a staunch union supporter and would oppose school vouchers that would provide taxpayer support for private-school tuition.
Her campaign announcement sounded some of the early themes of her campaign: “Our schools aren’t funded fairly or at the levels they should be; working people are left out when billionaires get handouts; women’s rights to health care are threatened; the cost of everything rises while our wages stay low; and not a single bill to stop gun violence in our communities has passed the Senate.”
Ruscittohas lifelong roots in the district, having grown up in Pleasant Hills before moving to nearby Jefferson Hills. There she served a term as a borough council member — she said she held regular hours to meet with constituents at the local library — before losing her re-election bid last fall.
Jefferson Hills skews decidedly Republican, and Ruscitto said her message would resonate across the district as a whole.
“I think the most important thing for Harrisburg is to not be the status quo, to listen to everybody and take everything into account,” she said. “My experience with life as a teacher and a coach [means] you see things from all angles. And I think regardless of Democrat or Republican right now, we have a lot of people on the cusp that just don't know where they fall. I can be that piece for them in Harrisburg.”
Her entry in the race has been rumored for some time, and it came into clearer view when she filed for the endorsement of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee. No other Democrats have declared themselves in the race.
That means she is the party’s best hope for taking on Robinson, a U.S. Marine combat veteran and first-term Senator who won the seat in 2020 by besting Democrat Pam Iovino. Robinson touts his support of veterans and first responders, as well as legislative accomplishments that include joining with other Republicans to oppose a later-abandoned plan to toll Interstate 79.
But the Ruscitto campaign already has begun to criticize him as too conservative and to fault him for deriding a Philadelphia firefighter during a hearing. (Robinson later apologized for the incident.)
“We quite frankly just deserve better,” the campaign statement asserts.
Robinson's campaign took issue with that characterization Tuesday afternoon. In a statement, campaign spokesman Dennis Roddy noted Robinson's military service, and said his record in Harrisburg spoke for itelf.
“He worked with Democratic governors to bring millions of dollars into the region while sponsoring legislation to expand genetic screening to protect women at risk of breast cancer," he said. "If that’s too conservative for Ms. Ruscitto, it helps to explain why voters in Jefferson Hills rejected her two months ago.”
According to state legislative rankings compiled by the Conservative Political Action Conference, Robinson’s voting record in his first two years was slightly less conservative than that of some other Republicans, but like most legislators, he has voted with his party the vast majority of the time.
The 37th district was redrawn after Robinson’s victory in the 2020 Census, and while it contained an evenly mixed share of voters, the new boundaries were drawn to exclude the Democratic bastion of Mt. Lebanon. Since then, Republican candidates have outperformed within the district compared to the county as a whole, though Democrats have been competitive here. U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and Gov. Josh Shapiro both carried the district in 2022, while Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato was trounced there last year.
Ruscitto that she supports abortion rights and the cause of unions, but would listen to the full range of viewpoints in the district.
“Your life, your life choices, and even your political decisions depend on what input you receive,” she said.
And as the campaign gets underway, she said she hoped voters would “get to know me. Learn what I stand for, and what I’ve done.”
