BRADDOCK, Pennsylvania — When Summer Lee first started running for office in 2018 to represent State House District 34, she was doing the unthinkable, going against longtime incumbent Paul Costa in a Democratic Party primary to represent a seat that includes parts of Pittsburgh as well as Swissvale, Homestead, and this old steel town along the Monongahela River.
Not that many people took her all that seriously.
After all, Costa is a legendary name in western Pennsylvania politics. He served that district forever and a day, and Lee was proudly as far left as the day is long. Lee welcomed support from the Pittsburgh chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Sierra Club, and Planned Parenthood.
In towns like this, with a working steel mill (the Edgar Thompson Works, which has been operating here for more than 150 years), change is often viewed with skepticism.
But Lee was victorious, by a lot, along with Sara Innamorato, who beat Dom Costa, Paul’s cousin (another incumbent). A handful of other local candidates upended mostly moderate Democrats in primaries in local races.
Everyone should have taken Lee seriously.
Two years later, Lee and Innamorato are heading toward easy victories this fall. The trail they blazed was repeated again here in western Pennsylvania in June when Rep. Adam Ravenstahl lost his seat in the Democratic primary to Emily Kinkead, a city attorney who supports “$15/hour minimum wage, single-payer healthcare and aggressive environmental action.”
Jessica Benham, a community activist, and Lissa Geiger Shulman, a former public school teacher, also won primaries running as progressives against more traditional Democrats.
Over in Philadelphia, the same thing has happened. Several progressive candidates in primaries for local races won, showing that the progressive army in that area can also be a force to be reckoned with.
The question is, how big a force?
Activists have boasted that these victories demonstrate how they win elections. They are right: It is sort of like the old Howard Dean 50-state program: Run local, even if it’s for dog catcher. No matter how local the race is, it leaves a blue imprint, which is smart, builds a bench, and helps change policy.
But are progressives really going to take over Pennsylvania or even the Democratic Party? Probably not.
What these incremental wins tell us about the Democratic Party is that while the party is changing granularly, that change is a natural occurrence that happens a lot with the party out of power. Larry Ceisler, a statewide public affairs professional based in Philadelphia, told me: “Like the Tea Party movement impacted Republicans in 2010, the progressive movement impacts Democrats. They expect to make impact as soon as they get into office. Certainly, when you have been out of power, that is to be expected, but they are still in the minority within their own party.”
It is why Ceisler scoffs at the Trump campaign’s assertion that Biden’s just going to be a figurehead and all of these progressives are going to run the show. “I just don’t think that’s correct,” Ceisler says. “But are you going to have basically a ceasefire of the Democratic civil war right now? Yes. … Is it going to start off again? Yeah. But that’s politics, and that’s policy — and there’s nothing wrong with that. The Republicans go through the same thing.”
Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin and Marshall College, agrees with Ceisler about the ceasefire not lasting all that long within the Democratic Party. “The progressive wing of the party is going to eventually vocalize and demand change,” he said. “I’m not sure to what degree that Biden fights that progressive wing, if at all.”
Ceisler said incumbents often take their seats for granted or miss the demographic changes right under their feet. “One of the things progressive candidates bring to the party is big energy, and one of the reasons they won these elections is that they work harder and more efficiently than their opponents,” he said. “You have to give [progressives] credit for being hard workers. They just don’t put their names on the ballot, and they work really, really hard to win,” Ceisler said.
But winning an election is completely different from passing legislation, said Madonna. “That is the challenge.”
If a candidate or a movement has spent all of their time and energy saying no, going into any negotiation on any issue can prove to be their undoing.
Our system of government was built on forcing compromise. As each ideologically different majority fails to do it, it will only lead us to the same conclusion we’ve faced with regularity since 2006: swing election cycles vacillating between one party and another in search of good governing.
