Stephen A. Zappala Jr. was re-elected as Allegheny County district attorney on Tuesday, surviving a rematch against the same progressive challenger who defeated him in the Democratic primary to win a seventh term as the county’s top prosecutor.
Mr. Zappala, the Republican nominee for DA and a 25-year incumbent, defeated Democratic nominee and the county’s former chief public defender Matt Dugan, according to unofficial county results. With almost all of the votes counted Tuesday night, Mr. Zappala had won about 51%, compared to about 48% for Mr. Dugan
It was a rare rematch of the May primary election, when Mr. Dugan beat Mr. Zappala by more than 10 percentage points to win the Democratic nomination. Republican voters nominated Mr. Zappala as a write-in candidate, giving him a second chance against Mr. Dugan. Amid polling that showed crime and public safety to be the most important issue for local voters, the general election attracted national attention — and money — as the latest contest between progressive reformers and more traditional prosecutors.
It ended in a remarkable feat of political survival by an incumbent who largely campaigned on his record even as he blamed others for crime.
"I can't believe I have the honor [that] the voters of Allegheny County have given me — the opportunity to serve a seventh term as the district attorney of this county,” Mr. Zappala, 66, told supporters gathered Tuesday night at Cupka’s Cafe II on the South Side.
It was a strikingly bitter campaign, whether during the candidates’ only debate, in television advertisements, or on social media. Mr. Dugan criticized the incumbent for failing to address critical issues including crime in Downtown Pittsburgh, and called Mr. Zappala “ignorant” of racial disparities in his prosecution of cases. Mr. Zappala said Mr. Dugan didn’t understand the powers of the office and warned that Pittsburgh would become like Philadelphia and San Francisco under his challenger.
Mr. Dugan’s defeat also marked a rare setback for progressives, who have won a string of electoral victories in Western Pennsylvania in recent years.
"We connected with a lot of voters,” Mr. Dugan, 44, told supporters gathered Tuesday night at Riley’s Pour House in Carnegie. “We just came up a little bit short.”
"I care deeply about criminal justice, I care deeply about Allegheny County, and there's a space for me out there somewhere," Mr. Dugan said. "I'll tackle that tomorrow."
Tuesday’s election was the first time since 1999 that there was a rematch in a race for Allegheny County district attorney. That year, Mr. Zappala handily beat W. Christopher Conrad, the county’s former top homicide prosecutor, by a margin of about two-to-one in the Democratic primary. But Mr. Conrad won the Republican nomination as a write-in candidate. And Mr. Zappala easily defeated him again that November. (Mr. Zappala first took office in 1998 after being tapped by a panel of local judges to replace Robert E. Colville, who resigned to become a Common Pleas Court judge.)
Since then, Mr. Zappala never faced much of a challenge to keep his seat. Turahn Jenkins, a former assistant DA, ran against Mr. Zappala in the 2019 primary. But the incumbent won by more than 10 percentage points.
Mr. Dugan first launched his campaign in January to oust the longtime top prosecutor with a platform of progressive reform. His message of offering more support for low-level offenders while more aggressively prosecuting violent crime resonated with a Democratic primary electorate that has increasingly tacked left in recent years on criminal justice, electing defense lawyers and reformers like Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner.
Both candidates agreed that they offered very different visions for how to run a DA’s office with more than 100 lawyers and a roughly $22 million budget.
“I think what we have seen especially in Downtown Pittsburgh … is a lack of leadership from our current district attorney, a lack of partnership, a lack of coalition-building,” Mr. Dugan said last month during their only campaign debate. “We need a district attorney who’s willing to lead and take on responsibility that comes with the title of chief law enforcement officer.”
Mr. Zappala said his opponent didn’t understand the office he was running to lead. The incumbent also increasingly feuded with Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey over Downtown crime in the campaign’s final weeks, saying the mayor was stopping cops from doing their jobs and even threatening to go to court to somehow take control of the police. Mr. Gainey dismissed Mr. Zappala’s criticism as election-season grandstanding.
“To me, being district attorney is an honor. To him, it’s a job,” Mr. Zappala said of Mr. Dugan during a KDKA radio interview late last month. “I don’t really think he appreciates the significance of the position.”
The race was also a microcosm of the national debate over criminal justice reform — and it showed not only in the tenor of the candidates’ TV ads, but also in who was paying for them.
Mr. Dugan’s primary and general election campaigns were almost entirely funded by the liberal billionaire George Soros. The New York-based megadonor, who has supported progressive candidates in races for prosecutor across the country, was the sole contributor to a political group that effectively underwrote Mr. Dugan’s campaign, including all his advertising. Mr. Soros donated almost $2 million to the group, while Mr. Dugan’s campaign raised only $67,000 through late-October, a small sum from a countywide race.
Mr. Zappala’s general election campaign was backed by several labor unions and other groups. And as the lifelong Democrat’s campaign came to be run by a constellation of Republican operatives, he raised at least $100,000 in the final days from the Commonwealth Leaders Fund. Commonwealth is one of the top conservative political groups in Pennsylvania and is heavily backed by Jeffrey Yass, a Republican megadonor and Pennsylvania’s richest man.
Some voters were clearly skeptical of a longtime incumbent prosecutor blaming others for crime.
“Zappala’s been making all these statements about how Matt Dugan’s going to ruin the city,” David Auth, of Oakland, said Tuesday after he voted for Mr. Dugan. “But he’s the one that’s been in power for all these years, and hasn’t done anything.”
Others were turned off by Mr. Dugan’s progressive streak.
“Cities need change, but he’s too much,” said Dayle Logan, 63, a retired Pittsburgh native who voted at the Brookline Recreation Center.
Mr. Zappala told supporters Tuesday that his work is only beginning.
"There's a lot we have to do," he said. "We're not going to fix everything, but we're going to start tomorrow morning.”
Jordan Anderson, Evan Robinson-Johnson, and Laura Esposito contributed to this report.
First Published: November 8, 2023, 4:03 a.m.
Updated: November 8, 2023, 5:47 p.m.
