Voters cast ballots Tuesday in two hotly contested state Senate districts west of the Allegheny Mountains, with Republicans hoping to defend one seat while picking up another. Democrats, who had a six-seat disadvantage in the upper chamber going into the election, aim to shrink the margins in the Allegheny County battlegrounds.
National Democrats identified both SD-45 and SD-37as “must-win” districts in the state.
Pennsylvania Democrats tapped state Rep. Nick Pisciottano, chair of the Allegheny County delegation in the House of Representatives, to compete in the 45th for the Mon Valley-centered seat of retiring Sen. Jim Brewster. Newcomer and security business owner Jen Dintini seeks to flip the district red and has gotten an influx of cash from Senate leadership to do so.
Recent redistricting benefited Republicans in the 37th. Still, first-term Republican Sen. Devlin Robinson of Bridgeville saw a challenge from longtime school teacher Nicole Ruscitto of Jefferson Hills for the district spanning a swath of Pittsburgh’s western and southern suburbs.
Robinson is a Pittsburgh native and military combat veteran who started a business after serving three tours with the U.S Marines after 9/11. Ruscitto says she comes from a family of public educators and only recently got into local politics, serving on Jefferson Hills Borough Council from 2019-2023.
Democrats largely targeted Robinson on the issue of abortion, a refrain local and national Republicans have faced since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Two recent Ruscitto ads aimed to link Robinson with former Republican gubernatorial candidate and conservative state Sen. Doug Mastriano, calling Robinson “extreme.”
A pro-Robinson TV ad responded to Ruscitto’s callout on abortion, which said he had voted to overturn the procedure in Pennsylvania. The competing ads highlighted the debate about a proposed change to the state constitution — to no longer guarantee the right to an abortion using taxpayer funding. In recent weeks, another ad portrayed Robinson as a bipartisan legislator, referenced health care bills he introduced in Harrisburg and reminded voters he’s a veteran.
In the 45th District race, a pro-Dintini ad, which launched in August, focused on lawmakers’ salaries, per diems and the number of work days spent at the state Capitol. Pisciottano said he shrugged off the first attack ad from Republicans because the legislature sets his salary and the number of session days for lawmakers in Harrisburg. His reimbursement for per diems, he said, were average compared to others — he called the ad “dishonest” for conflating multiple years of expenses with the yearly $106,000 salary, something he noted Dintini was effectively campaigning to earn herself.
In another Republican salvo, an ad aimed to link Pisciottano with liberal financier George Soros, the “defund the police” movement and open borders. While Pisciottano hadn’t received money from Soros directly, wealthy donors often supply political action committees with millions of dollars that are channeled to campaigns. These so-called “dark money” groups don’t need to disclose the identities of their funders.
As in other competitive legislative districts, a pro-Pisciottano ad aimed to link Dintini to overturning abortion rights. In her response to a WESA Voter Guide survey on this issue, Dintini pushed back against the claim, saying she’s for the state’s current laws: “I support a woman’s right to safe medical procedures and her being able to make those decisions with her doctors.”
Ruscitto spent more than $2.2 million in an attempt to flip the 37th, with Robinson pulling in more than $500,000 in October alone, for a total of more than $750,000.
Both Robinson and Dintini saw most of their financial backing come from Senate leadership and their party’s campaign committee.
Dintini also attracted more than $313,000 in October alone. Pisciottano drew more than $460,000 in the final month of the campaign from the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, PSEA and an assortment of labor unions.
