Three high-profile wins by progressive candidates in last week’s Democratic primary marked a shift in the Allegheny County party that has been in the works for years, political observers say.
In recent years, progressive candidates have increased the county’s representation of women in elected office and broken barriers by bringing Pittsburgh its first black mayor, Ed Gainey, and Pennsylvania’s first black woman in Congress, U.S. Rep. United Summer Lee of Swissvale.
Then, on Tuesday, three progressive candidates defeated more moderate opponents in hotly contested Democratic primary races. State Rep. Sara Innamorato won a six-seat race for Allegheny County executive, Chief Public Defender Matt Dugan defeated Stephen A. Zappala Jr. in the race for district attorney and Allegheny County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam easily won the party’s nomination in her race. for another term in a seat on the general council.
No longer outsiders, two of the three progressive candidates, Dugan and Hallam, entered their races with the support of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee. Hallam was also a career starter.
Lee said the victories were the culmination of years of successful organizing of politically progressive groups into a coalition. Organizations include service worker unions, liberal nonprofits, environmental advocates, black-led groups, progressive Jewish groups, and criminal justice groups.
“Five years ago, we were nobody. But now there’s a movement,” Lee said. “Western Pennsylvania is supposed to be the home of the Blue Dogs (conservative Democrats) and the old-timers network, but we’ve infiltrated and expanded that constituency.”
What is a progressive?
The term “progressive” has been applied to a wide range of politicians, and given their recent successes, many local candidates have attempted to take on the progressive mantle in their campaigns.
When asked to explain what it means to be a progressive, Lee said his definition is simple.
“Progressive means people who are trying to move us forward,” he said. “Advancing racial justice, environmental justice and social justice. Not only in our world, but in our politics.”
He said progressive candidates are listening and responding to Democratic voters’ desires to see more fairness in areas such as the economy and the criminal justice system.
Ben Forstate, an election analyst who ran Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor’s successful primary campaign, said the county’s progressive voting bloc is growing.
The blog includes what Forstate calls “institutionally minded progressives” and “outside progressives” who are more skeptical of working within the county’s existing institutions.
Institutionally minded progressives represent a plurality of local Democratic voters, but not a majority, and are less skeptical of existing institutions, Forstate said. He said those progressives want the leadership to be more reflective of the county’s growing diversity and to be more assertive in implementing progressive policies.
Being able to combine those two factions has been a politically effective strategy against the section of the party that is made up of older, more conservative Democrats, Forstate said.
“No one group of voters has a lock on the electorate, so you need to come together,” he said. “So when outside progressives can appeal to the institutionalist or the institutionalist can appeal to the outside progressives, that seems to be a winning formula in the Allegheny County Democratic primary.”
Lee said politicians who want to appeal to progressives can’t just operate from the institutions. By ignoring outside perspectives, lawmakers can cut themselves off from many voters in the electorate, he said.
Changing movement
For decades, Allegheny County Democrats operated through machine-style politics, leveraging a network where political favors such as jobs and services were implicitly traded for votes, Forstate said.
That has begun to change, he said.
This became evident over the past few years, when several candidates who were endorsed by the Allegheny County Democratic Committee lost their races to progressive challengers. For a time, after the committee controversially endorsed a candidate who openly supported former President Donald Trump, some progressive candidates refused to seek the committee’s endorsement.
Allegheny County Treasurer John Weinstein received the committee’s endorsement this year in the six-way race for county executive, but ended up losing by 8 percentage points to progressive Innamorato. Forstate said Weinstein’s campaign attracted many traditional and more conservative Democrats, but that wasn’t enough to win the party’s nomination, especially in such a crowded race.
“I think what’s replacing the machine, in a way, is a coalition of groups,” he said.
Lee pointed to 2018 as the year a coalition of like-minded progressive groups came together and pushed candidates outside the traditional machine structure.
That year, Lee and Innamorato successfully mounted primary challenges for state House seats held by members of a powerful political family, the Costas, without the endorsement of the local Democratic committee.
They were supported by many of the same progressive groups that were part of this year’s successful campaigns. Lee said those groups include the Alliance for Police Accountability, One Pennsylvania and environmental groups such as PennEnvironment and Food and Water Action, along with Lee’s own political action committee, Unite PAC.
Lee said the coming together of these groups resulted from the electorate’s demand to see better representation of elected officials, both in identity diversity and in politics.
“It took a lot of work and organization to put this coalition together,” Lee said.
Forstate said the work has been even more successful because many people associated with or supporting these progressive groups have also joined the Allegheny County Democratic Committee.
This year there have been a number of progressive candidates, including Dugan and Hallam, who have easily secured endorsements. It’s another sign that Allegheny County has moved away from Democratic politics as usual, he said.
Change of electorate
While progressive candidates have been effective at organizing progressive groups into a powerful coalition, Forstate said the candidates have also been driven by changing demographics.
Back in 2007, Forstate said Patrick Dowd, 39, ran a successful campaign against a 50-year-old incumbent in Pittsburgh City Council District 7 as the area began to see an influx of younger residents.
Forstate said Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s 2011 campaign was critical of the old-school style of Democratic politics and ran to the left of his opponent on several issues. In recent years, however, Fitzgerald has supported progressive opponents such as Lee, Innamorato and Hallam.
And since the late 2000s, Allegheny County’s Democratic electorate has become younger and more diverse, increasing the chances of local progressive candidates, Forstate said.
“If the rest of the country wants to see what role millennials are playing in government, they should look to Allegheny County,” Forstate said.
This shift has been centered in the city of Pittsburgh, but is also occurring in some suburban areas. Forstate said Innamorato won many precincts along the Interstate 279 corridor in the North Hills and the Route 19 corridor in the South Hills, which he said have seen an influx of millennials and young families.
“This is a national trend. Here it’s just magnified by demographics,” Forstate said, noting that the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s caused many Gen Xers to leave Pittsburgh and the increased universities and hospitals in the area has attracted millennial Democrats who are more likely to support progressive candidates. .
Fitzgerald recognized the achievements of the progressives.
“There’s no question that the progressive wing of the party has a lot of energy,” he said, agreeing that demographic changes have contributed as the county’s young voting-age population has increased.
“Whatever your constituency is, you have to be of service to that constituency,” he said. “Will we be like Seattle and Portland? We’ll see. One thing’s for sure, it’s a different Pittsburgh than many of us grew up with.”
Ryan Deto is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Ryan by email at rdeto@triblive.com or via Twitter .
