Stephen A. Zappala Jr. survived the toughest challenge of his political career in a way that perhaps only he could.
The longtime Allegheny County district attorney and household name in Western Pennsylvania politics convinced a bloc of moderate Democrats, Republicans, and independents to stick with him — even as the GOP nominee in a county where the party’s voters are significantly outnumbered. That helped him defeat a progressive Democratic challenger who enough voters concerned about crime came to view as too lenient on public safety.
Mr. Zappala — a lifelong Democrat, 25-year incumbent, son of a former state Supreme Court justice, and grandson of a former state lawmaker — had lost the May Democratic primary by more than 10 percentage points to Matt Dugan, a longtime public defender and criminal justice reformer. But he won the Republican nomination as a write-in candidate, setting up a rare November rematch.
He won Round 2 on Tuesday by about three percentage points.
In his victory speech that night, Mr. Zappala said he would work with Pittsburgh police to address concerns about Downtown crime, as well as homelessness, public safety, and economic development on the South Side.
“Rather than argue about undermining Pittsburgh police and not helping them do the job, we're going to look at it a little bit differently,” said Mr. Zappala, 66.
In the days leading up to Election Day, Mr. Zappala expressed confidence that a broader electorate than in the primary — one that polling showed saw crime as the No. 1 issue — would return him to office for a seventh term.
“I have the great opportunity to meet people who want to talk about the community,” Mr. Zappala told the Post-Gazette before polls opened. “They don’t want to talk about themselves, they don’t want to hear me talking about me. They want to talk about their community, their children, their schools, ‘What do I feel safe doing? What do I not feel safe doing?’”
After his victory, political observers agreed that a broad, countywide coalition helped him prevail.
Joe DiSarro, a political science professor at Washington & Jefferson College, said Mr. Zappala’s long incumbency and his willingness to court voters across party lines were key factors. It also helped that he was facing a rookie candidate, Mr. DiSarro said.
“Matt Dugan may be a very fine person, but he's simply politically a novice,” he said. “If you're starting to run a race countywide, that takes a great deal of effort, organization, knowledge of the issues, knowledge of the interests of the voters in each precinct. And that's a difficult task for someone that is new.”
He and others said that Mr. Zappala’s general election campaign, led by a small group of Republican operatives, was well-run and organized. Some voters at polling places Tuesday said they had taken note of Mr. Zappala’s TV ads, which struck a frightening tone on crime more familiar to GOP campaigns. In attacking Mr. Dugan, the county’s former chief public defender, one ad highlighted that a lawyer who worked for him had a “F— the Police” sign in their office. (Mr. Dugan said he had the sign removed as soon as he learned of it.)
“It left me with my mouth open,” Dayle Logan, a 63-year-old retiree married to a Pittsburgh police officer, said of the ad as she voted in Brookline.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dugan effectively outsourced his campaign financing to George Soros, the billionaire liberal donor. While Mr. Soros has often been just one source of funding for progressive candidates in races for prosecutor across the country, he was the sole contributor to an outside group that paid for almost all of Mr. Dugan’s campaign.
Despite that, some voters did want change, including David Auth, a University of Pittsburgh law student who cast his ballot for Mr. Dugan.
“Zappala’s been making all these statements about how Matt Dugan’s going to ruin the city,” Mr. Auth said Tuesday at First Baptist Church. “But he’s the one that’s been in power for all these years, and hasn’t done anything.”
But more voters stuck with the incumbent and his record. Rob Kania, a consultant who has worked Downtown since the 1990s, said public safety was top-of-mind as he voted in Upper St. Clair. He said he was worried about Downtown crime making its way to the suburbs, and thought Mr. Zappala was better positioned than Mr. Dugan to stop that from happening.
“I saw the resurgence of Market Square,” Mr. Kania said. “And I’ve been here for the decline. It’s frightening. It’s sad.”
Christopher Nicholas, a Harrisburg-based Republican strategist, said his party ran a better campaign — from when it started the write-in effort to get Mr. Zappala on the general election ballot, to the closing months of fundraising that kept pace with cash from Mr. Soros. And Allegheny County voters, he said, weren’t ready for a progressive prosecutor in the mold of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, also a former defense lawyer supported by Mr. Soros.
Mr. Krasner has long been one of Republicans’ favorite political punching bags when it comes to crime, both inside and outside Pennsylvania. Another one of Mr. Zappala’s ads warned that “the same extremists who created” crime in Philadelphia “want Pittsburgh to be their next social justice experiment.”
The election results, Mr. Nicholas said, “showed that once you get outside the Democratic primary, there was not an appetite in the county for that type of left-wing, George Soros, Larry Krasner-type of approach to law enforcement. And look, it's no wonder: Pittsburgh is just culturally a more conservative part of the state.”
While Mr. Dugan dominated precincts in Pittsburgh, Mr. Zappala was able to hold the county’s more moderate and conservative suburbs. And even as he lost some inner-ring suburban precincts, he was competitive enough in those places to win the race.
Mr. Zappala’s victory was a rare Election Day bright spot for Republicans — albeit one they needed a registered Democrat and easily recognizable name to win. Democrat Sara Innamorato defeated Republican Joe Rockey in a tight race for Allegheny County executive. The GOP lost other races across the state and the country.
His victory raises questions about how Mr. Zappala will work with Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey to address public safety issues, after the two repeatedly and bitterly clashed over Downtown crime in the months leading up to the general election. Mr. Zappala even said in the closing days of his campaign that he was considering taking legal action in federal court to somehow wrest control of local police from city officials, who he said aren’t letting officers do their jobs.
Mr. Gainey, who had said before Election Day that Mr. Zappala was just playing politics, said after that he’s still willing to work with the re-elected prosecutor.
“We can work with anybody. I'm not pulling favors for anybody, but if it's about making people safer… then we can work with anyone,” Mr. Gainey told reporters Tuesday night.
Mr. Zappala could not be reached for an interview this week. He told the Post-Gazette before the election that would give the mayor some time to address his concerns about drug dealing, property crime, and open lewdness Downtown. Business leaders continue to express concerns to him about public safety in the area.
Close watchers of the political feud between the mayor and the DA said now that the election is over, they both have a responsibility to collaborate.
Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia-based public affairs consultant who has worked on Democratic campaigns and has an office in Pittsburgh, said Mr. Gainey and Mr. Zappala don’t need to get along personally. But their jobs as elected officials require them to work together to keep people safe, he said.
“They might not even speak to each other, but at least on a staff level, they have to find a way to communicate with each other,” Mr. Ceisler said.
David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said blaming others for crime might have worked for Mr. Zappala as a campaign tactic — but now it’s time to accept responsibility and get to work.
“You can't keep just saying it's somebody else's fault,” Mr. Harris said. “I mean, the guy's a six-term incumbent. He's got to figure out a way to be part of the solution, and not pointing fingers at others.”
Jordan Anderson, Laura Esposito, Neena Hagen, Hallie Lauer, and Evan Robinson-Johnson contributed to this report.
First Published: November 9, 2023, 9:24 p.m.
Updated: November 10, 2023, 4:03 p.m.
