One lesson of this year’s primary election seems to be that it’s hard to win a race with only a single issue, or with a focus on a single demographic or geographic base. Both of those problems were evident in the battle for the Democratic nomination for the 12th Congressional district.
Challenger Bhavani Patel earned about 39% of the vote district-wide — a percentage nearly identical to what Lee’s top foe, Steve Irwin, garnered in 2022. Patel ran up big margins in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, a Jewish enclave that proved receptive to Patel’s criticism of Lee for not supporting Israel more. Patel actually outperformed Irwin, who is Jewish, in the area. But Patel did worse than Irwin in most areas outside the neighborhood.
Overall turnout was down slightly from 2022, with about 7,500 fewer voters casting a ballot this year. Despite that, Lee received more than 13,000 additional votes in 2024, while Patel fell more than 3,000 votes short of Irwin’s total.
Three other candidates were on the ballot in the 2022 race: Jerry Dickinson, William Parker, and Jeff Woodard. But Lee appears to have consolidated her support in this year’s head-to-head contest. She earned more than 61% of the vote this year – an improvement of more than 17 percentage points. She saw those gains in nearly every part of the district ... except the Squirrel Hill area.
Still, Lee now emerges from a primary in which 40% of Democrats withheld their support, and must now prepare for a general election fight against Republican James Hayes. But in 2022, most of those Democratic voters did end up voting for Lee in the general election.
Lee’s endorsement of Ashley Comans didn’t seem to help much in the 34th
Many politicos were watching the 34th District state House race to see whether Lee — and fellow progressives Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato — had the kind of political coattails that would benefit Ashley Comans, who they endorsed for the race. The evidence suggests the backing had little impact.
The 34th overlaps with about half of Lee’s congressional district. And in those 44 precincts, Lee and Salisbury received a nearly identical number of votes. Lee did better than Salisbury in the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of North Point Breeze and Homewood, while Salisbury did better than Lee in North Braddock, Wilkins and her hometown of Swissvale.
Comans won her hometown of Wilkinsburg, where she serves on the school board. But she lost nearly everywhere else.
Eugene DePasquale used his hometown advantage to win
It’s no surprise that Democratic attorney general candidate Eugene’s DePasquale’s base of support was in the Pittsburgh area: He was the only candidate outside the Philadelphia area, grew up in Pittsburgh and lives here today.
But DePasquale’s support was broad when compared to that of next closest rival, Jack Stollsteimer. DePasquale spent much of his political career in York, and was the only candidate in the race who had held statewide office before. He sometimes boasted about having visited each county when he was auditor general.
Stollsteimer, the district attorney in Delaware County outside Philadelphia, did perform better on the eastern side of the state. But he only beat DePasquale in 13 counties near Philadelphia, and by comparatively modest margins — a dynamic driven by the fact that Stollsteimer’s vote was split with three other Philadelphia-area candidates. The other three candidates together received about 110,000 votes in Philadelphia alone — roughly the same number DePasquale received in Allegheny County.
Erin McClelland loses Erie and Philadelphia but still wins the state
Ryan Bizarro did well in and around Erie, which he represents in the state House, and in the Philadelphia area. But Allegheny County’s Erin McClelland won a broad swath of everything in between.
While McClelland did pick up some votes in the center of the state and northeast, her biggest support came from southwestern Pennsylvania. Some of her strongest performances were in counties where she previously twice campaigned for a seat in Congress.
