PITTSBURGH — When attorney Mik Pappas decided in the summer of 2017 to buck the local Democratic Party and run as an independent in Pennsylvania’s 31st Magisterial District race, no one within the party apparatus thought for a moment that Mr. Pappas would upend Ron Costa Sr., who had held the office for 24 years.
After all, not only was he endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, he proudly identified with the group. He has no chance, no hope, no money.
Except Mr. Pappas did win, with a robust margin of 55% to 45% over an incumbent Democrat with a legacy political name. Mr. Pappas said at the time that he was spurred by the election of Donald Trump to jump into the race. The Democratic Party, however, convinced themselves that Mr. Pappas was an East End outlier. No one took it too seriously.
They probably should have.
By the time Mr. Pappas had won in November of 2017, DSA member Sara Innamorato had already launched a bid to topple Ron Costa’s cousin: state Rep. Dom Costa. On the night Pappas won, Innamorato called it “a milestone, and having reached it with such success, I am basking in it. It is a first test of hope,” adding that his victory “was something new for Pittsburgh: speaking openly about democratic socialism and challenging people that have familiar names.”
Two months later, community activist Summer Lee announced she was challenging Democratic state Rep. Paul Costa. By the time the dust settled in November 2018, both Costas had been ousted by decisive Democratic Socialist victories and yet, whether they were powerless or simply in denial, establishment Democrats continued to be paralyzed.
Even the humiliating defeat former congressman Conor Lamb suffered last year to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman — an avowed progressive who had suffered a stroke several days before the primary — still didn’t raise enough alarm bells within the state and local Democratic parties.
What people missed is that the left-wing challengers were patient, organized and strategic: They picked races they knew they could win, and didn’t overreach. And they have gone nearly undefeated in every race in Allegheny County for several years now.
Six years after the upstart Mr. Pappas won, he is no longer on the ballot; he declined to seek reelection last November after a rocky tenure that included forgoing cash bail and refusing to sign warrants submitted by local enforcement. However, the progressive activist movement that began with him just clocked a clean sweep of local offices in the Democratic primary — shocking both those who had not been paying attention and those who once had the power, but who now found themselves powerless to stop it.
With Tuesday’s election, the push leftward within the local Democratic Party since Trump’s election is more or less complete: The far-left is no longer the fringe. The winners Tuesday included Ms. Innamorato for county executive, Matt Dugan for district attorney, Bethany Hallam for her second term on county council and Erica Rocchi Brusselars for treasurer.
Along with wins by progressive mayoral candidate Ed Gainey over a year ago and Ms. Lee to the U.S. House last year, this movement has graduated from being a reaction to Trump, and it is no longer an insurgency: It is the establishment.
And now everyone wants to know: How will they govern?
Long-time Philadelphia political analyst and founder of public affairs strategy firm Ceisler Media, Larry Ceisler said: “First there is no doubt that the Trump election spurred this activist movement; I think that a lot of people really didn’t care how left the ideology was as long as it could get people to the polls and to vote against Trump and MAGA-type candidates — heck, I even became further left in the beginning of his presidency.”
As for governing, Ms. Innamorato has railed against UPMC — the largest non-government employer not only in the Pittsburgh region, but in the entire state — for being too big. And she told KDKA radio morning hosts Marty Griffin and Larry Richert last week that if she had the power, she would shut down the brand new Shell cracker plant in Beaver County.
Mr. Ceisler admits those threats may tell businesses considering locating here that activism will trump economic development — especially if plans don’t square with the activists who supported Ms. Innamorato’s candidacy. Both she and Mr. Dugan received massive contributions from outside left-wing activist groups, with the “Working Families Party” buying ads for Ms. Innamorato and liberal billionaire George Soros doing so for Mr. Dugan.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has long been a big player in the progressive wins here, including the big sweep on Tuesday. You don’t have to look very far to see the impact of that kind of outside influence over an elected official: Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey had SEIU Healthcare chair his election campaign, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from them, and rewarded them with top sensitive positions on his staff. According to reporting done by KDKA investigative reporter Andy Sheehan, SEIU enlisted Mr. Gainey in its campaign to unionize UPMC.
Mr. Sheehan also found that SEIU’s political director supplied Mr. Gainey with talking points in the city’s frayed negotiations with the health care system. The relationship has deteriorated so much the mayor refuses to attend UPMC events, and the mayor’s office absurdly turned down a partnership with UPMC to teach city employees CPR.
One Allegheny County Democrat who is not part of the progressive takeover said, “This is the result of being owned by your contributors — no matter if it’s good for your constituents or not.” Still, he admits their strategy has been brilliant: “They won with Pappas, Lee and Innamorato in 2018, then went on to win some county council races, other state house races, and then decided to back Ed Gainey in his run for mayor, who quite frankly had not always been identified with the progressives … that is, until he was sworn in.”
He said, “I think that opened their eyes and encouraged Summer Lee to run for Congress, and then when Summer won the race, they encouraged Sara to run. And now it looks like it’s a complete takeover.”
The establishment wing of the local Democratic Party has atrophied: They run campaigns that are outdated; they do not organize; and their tactics — like the reliance on yard signs and endorsements — simply no longer matter to the average voter.
Meanwhile the left has been anything but stagnant and complacent. They had a plan — and the energy and manpower to execute it. They aggressively recruited people to join the Democratic committee and become committee members.
In recent years, there had been zero effort from the establishment to fill vacancies on the committee. It was a quiet dissolution of a centrist party that had governed this county and city for over 100 years, dying slowly of inertia.
The center of the party has also failed to recruit or encourage anyone young and inspiring to run for office. One union official — who has to navigate both worlds — said the reason they don’t is because they can’t: “There are a lot of people afraid of the left right now — because not only do they run a campaign against you, they demonize you, call you racist, things that’ll stick with you for a long time.”
“The other thing is too many people in the center kept kidding themselves, saying, ‘This will cool down’ and ‘It’ll just work its way out.’ And they have to realize they need to run real campaigns,” he said.
Mr. Ceisler isn’t sure if things will go back to ‘normal’ or if this is the new normal for the party: “They are now the establishment; they are not the outsiders,” he said.
But Mr. Ceisler also had a warning for progressives: “On Tuesday night in Philly, you had Helen Gym running as a full-throated progressive, along with a slate of progressive council candidates all backed by the SEIU and Working Families party — and they all lost. They all lost.”
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: May 21, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
