WASHINGTON, Pa. — In the spring of 2004, attorney Sean Logue said he was so inspired by the message of fiscal and social conservatism U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey delivered in his fierce primary campaign against Sen. Arlen Specter that he attended “internet meet-ups” to discuss those principles with like-minded conservatives who supported the Lehigh County Republican.
“Toomey was a firebrand, and he espoused a pure conservative doctrine,” explained Mr. Logue, who was drawn to Mr. Toomey’s pro-life, school choice, anti-spending platform.
While Mr. Toomey lost to Mr. Specter in that primary — very, very, narrowly — the race exposed fractures within the Republican ranks, as the party struggled to define what it meant to be a conservative. Six years later, the Tea Party emerged, and Mr. Logue once again couldn’t wait to vote for Mr. Toomey as the embodiment of that movement.
Today, Mr. Logue is attempting to lead the newest upstart movement in the Republican Party. He considers himself part of the “Patriot Party” and “MAGA movement” — and he recently gained control of the Washington County Republican Party.
As chair, he refuses to say whether the county party will endorse long-time Republican county commissioner and former candidate for state treasurer Diana Irey Vaughan — a staunch conservative in anyone’s measure — in this spring’s primary contests.
As for Mr. Toomey, the upstart who inspired Mr. Logue, the goalposts of what it means to be a conservative have moved passed him. “Had [Toomey] run in the Republican primary last spring, he would not have earned my vote, he’s not conservative enough,” Mr. Logue said in an interview with the Post-Gazette.
Since the 2020 presidential election, the local Republican committees in Allegheny, Washington and Butler counties have all splintered, with many factions believing that Mr. Trump won the election and some demanding MAGA litmus tests for anyone who runs for elected office.
Of the three Republican county chairmanships, only Sam DeMarco in Allegheny still holds his seat.
Dave Ball in Washington County — who was instrumental in flipping his county’s voter registration totals from majority Democrat to majority Republican — declined to seek reelection after six years in leadership roles. “I couldn’t take the infighting anymore,” the former U.S. Steel executive said in an interview.
While it can seem as if every Washington County Republican spends all day on social media posting about RINOs, it’s actually hard to find one who doesn’t credit Mr. Ball and his organizational skills for turning the county red. November 2020 marked the first time this century that the GOP won a majority on the board of commissioners. He’s continuing to work to help Republican candidates, but no longer through the county party.
In Butler County, there are so many factions, and so many feuds, and so many entities who claim to be the “real” county party, it’s hard to figure out exactly what is going on.
The short version is: Last spring, a struggle over control of the county party leadership led to the established county GOP committee suing members of the Butler “Patriots” group, who formed a nonprofit with the same name as the established party.
Then a third faction emerged, which teamed with the second faction to oust the established party leadership. However, those two factions are now at odds with each other.
I discovered a possible fourth faction while driving to Butler: a “Republican Constitutional Conservative Headquarters” storefront in Cooperstown, along Route 8, with a large sign reading “The Impassioned Patriots” and dozens of “Trump Won” flags billowing along the side of the road.
If you’re wondering “Who’s on first?” you are not alone.
Slippery Rock Mayor Jondavid Longo, a Marine Corps veteran who recently left his post as secretary of what had been the established Butler County Republican Party, said he had no idea who that fourth entity was. But he did say the “original” party has a new home.
“We created the ‘United Republicans of Butler County,’ which consists of the longest-enduring and most-active Butler County Republican committee people and volunteers in Butler County,” he said.
Mr. Longo, at 32 the youngest mayor in borough history, had just finished teaching a GED class to prisoners at the county prison when I spoke with him. He said that he and others walked away because of the outside groups who joined the committee, and then initiated round after round of infighting. “So, instead of us getting the good work done that needed to be done during the very important midterm elections that we just went through, the Butler County Republican Committee was entirely disabled and did next to nothing,” he said.
In Allegheny County, Sam DeMarco is the last man standing — but that’s not without several people trying to take him out as part of a faction called “Team Red.” He ultimately won reelection as chairman late last year, but the process was not without massive turbulence. The issues he faced were similar to what the Washington and Butler chairs faced: being branded “too establishment” and, yes, a RINO.
Mr. DeMarco, also a Marine Corps veteran, began his journey in Republican politics as a volunteer for an insurgent conservative organization, which is why he is amused when his critics call him “establishment”: “I was the president of Veterans and Patriots United for six years, a grassroots Tea Party group for the western suburbs,” he explained. “I recognized early on — as early as 2010 — that you can’t just go out and scream and hold up a sign and expect to get your way. If you want to effect change, you have to get involved. And that’s what I did, getting involved in my local party, my state party, and now here running the county party,” he said.
This turbulence from the “patriot” wing of the party peaked ahead of the midterm elections, which saw Republicans lose the governor’s race, the U.S. Senate race, two local congressional races and the majority in the state House in a year that was supposed to be a good one for Republicans.
It doesn’t help that the state GOP is seen as weak and ineffective — in part for failing to endorse in the governor and Senate primaries, but also for failing to advance a comprehensive mail-in ballot program to counter the Democrats’ strengths.
Mike Mikus, a western Pennsylvania Democratic strategist, says his party benefits when GOP activists start demanding litmus tests, not just for candidates but also for volunteers: “While my party has its own problems, when I see this kind of turmoil in places like Washington County, it means there is a space for Democrats to make moves.”
David Urban, an Aliquippa-raised, West Point-trained, D.C.-based Republican strategist, says he’s seen this kind of intraparty turbulence before — when Toomey almost upended Mr. Urban’s then-boss, Arlen Specter, in 2004. After that, Mr. Urban had a front-row seat to a disrupted party when he served as then-candidate Donald J. Trump’s Pennsylvania advisor in 2016, when many Republicans were skeptical whether he was actually a Republican.
“There are always groups in every political party that want to tug and push and tell people how they are not conservative enough, or they are too conservative. There’s never a steady state in politics; it is always complex, always shifting, and it is never easy to navigate it,” Mr. Urban said.
To his point, Mr. DeMarco, Mr. Ball and Mr. Longo all found a way to move with the political tectonic plates — with Mr. DeMarco still on the inside, and Mr. Ball and Mr. Longo finding a way on the outside: All three have robust voter registration and mail-in ballot programs as part of their plans.
Mr. Urban said what’s happening within the local parties here is happening in counties across Pennsylvania and the country, “but you don’t have to have unanimity to have unity; in other words, you can uphold the principles of the party without having everybody singing from the same hymnal all the time.”
Mr. Ball says that is how you avoid the problems that inevitably happen when a party falls into disarray: “When that happens you lose voters trust . . . and elections.”
North Side native Salena Zito is a national political reporter for The Washington Examiner, a New York Post columnist and co-author of “The Great Revolt”: zito.salena@gmail.com.
First Published: January 15, 2023, 5:00 a.m.