PITTSBURGH — Congressman Chris Delzio faced the same economic headwinds as Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Bob Casey and two other House Democrats in battleground districts, but the red wave that hit Pennsylvania and the nation survived.
Democrats can draw many lessons from the race in Pennsylvania's 17th Congressional District, but Delzio told the Post that the lessons boil down to one: “If you don't have a clear economic vision, No,” he said.
For Delzio, that means his left-wing economic populism, fighting corporate power and defending the union way of life. And even though it was inspired by Bernie Sanders, his supporters don't seem to notice.
He wishes Harris and other Democrats had accepted it.
The economy was the most important issue in the 2024 election. Years of inflation under President Biden have left Americans poorer, and polls repeatedly show they trust President-elect Donald Trump more than Harris to right the ship.
But the Harris campaign prioritized attacking President Trump as a threat to abortion rights and democracy.
“That's not what people needed to hear. People needed to hear more about the economy,” said Hillary Flynt, an environmental activist from economically depressed Beaver County, where Harris lost by 21 points, in a post. told the paper.
And while what people heard about Harris' promised “opportunity economy” — with packages ranging from housing subsidies to tax cuts for small businesses — went over their heads, voters Flynt said he was clinging like a moth to the president's repeated word “tariffs.” into flames.
According to exit polls, Democrats lost working-class votes, both voters without a college education and voters earning less than $100,000 a year.
“They just aren't communicating with working-class people and they're not trying to get back the people they lost to Trump,” said Flint, a Harris voter who said Veep preached to the choir. , criticized for campaigning with Mark Cuban. Taylor Swift and other elites.
“It's not really surprising that the Democratic Party, which has abandoned working-class people, now realizes that the working class has abandoned them,” Democratic Socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said. said The day after Harris lost.
However, due in part to Sanders' influence, Delzio won.
Delzio focused his campaign on union members and railed against corporate “jagoffs” (Pittsburgh word for bastards).
This strategy helped Democrats gain the support of the Pittsburgh Area Construction Trades Council and even capture the votes of those who split their votes for President Trump.
The freshman representative outnumbered the vice president across his vast swing district, including the college-educated suburbs northwest of Pittsburgh.
But the biggest lead against Harris is in blue-collar Beaver County, where the steel industry long ago left and a former union Democratic stronghold slowly gave way to President Trump.
Delgio lost to Bieber by about 13,600 votes, while Harris lost by about 20,000 votes.
That means something stopped people who voted for Trump from voting straight Republican to stick with Delzio, Democratic strategist Mike Mikus told the Post.
Mr. Deluzio and Mr. Trump are “basically fighting over the same turf” in appealing to wealthier, non-Pittsburgh voters who feel screwed over by Washington and Wall Street, Mr. Mikus said. Ta.
Deluzio acknowledged that he was tapping into the same populist anger as Trump, but it was coming from the left. He accused Washington of “poor trade deals” that killed union jobs and gave politicians shillings for American companies.
Deluzio praised Biden for blaming businesses for price gouging and undermining the administration's credibility rather than blaming inflation for historic spending, while Harris said she would fire Biden. He campaigned with billionaire Mark Cuban, who spoke out. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan;
“We need to be more aggressive in fighting monopolies and seizing corporate power,” said Delzio, who was a delegate for Bernie Sanders at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
He sees this fight as giving workers more bargaining power, protecting small businesses and lowering prices for consumers.
Although he once confessed sympathy for “Brother Bernie” on a podcast, “I don't think he's a socialist,” said Beaver County Democratic Party Chair Erin Gabriel.
Sanders ran for president in 2020 on the platform of replacing private health insurance with government-run Medicare for All, but Gabriel said, “We need to fix the health care system before we move to a bigger system.'' I understand that,” he said.
The 40-year-old representative is an Iraq veteran who organized the United Steelworkers and the University of Pittsburgh faculty union. And the Italian-American father of four also refuses to be lumped in with anti-Israel progressives like Rep. Summer Lee of Pittsburgh, instead calling himself “a Western Pennsylvanian.” They are called “Democrats.”
“I feel like Chris is more of a centrist,” said Mike Slawianowski, president of Allegheny County Lodge 91, a fraternal police organization that supports both Delzio and Republican Sen.-elect Dave McCormick. spoke.
That perception made it difficult for Delzio's Republican opponent, Rob Mercuri, to portray him as a “.liberal extremistRepublican consultant Dennis Roddy said the message worked to oust other Pennsylvania Democrats, like McCormick's opponent, Sen. Bob Casey.
But most importantly, Delzio put his ideas into action and made himself known.
Deluzio, who came to Congress after Democrats lost the House majority in the 2022 midterm elections, was given the political gift of a lifetime. It was a toxic train derailment across the border in East Palestine, Ohio.
“He was on the ground, in people's living rooms, holding hands with families,” Gabriel recalled of Delzio working with her to deliver drinking water to affected residents in the district, almost the first day. told.
Delzio worked with volunteer firefighters to introduce bipartisan rail safety legislation to Congress. blamed on the industry Advertisements link his anti-monopoly policies to smoke rising from railroad tracks.
The election left an impression on Trump-supporting counties, giving Delzio an even bigger advantage in this election since his last victory.
Darlington Republican Supervisor Mike Carreon, who did not vote for Deluzio but was a guest at Biden's State of the Union address, said, “We have different opinions on what to eat for breakfast, but we need railroad regulation. I agree that it is,” he said.
“People in Beaver actually vote for the people they know, not the political parties they love,” Gabriel said.
Mr. Flynt said Mr. Biden's failure to set foot in East Palestine for more than a year “hurt people's view of the Democratic Party and therefore Mr. Harris.”
But Delzio resisted that trend.
“He's for the people,” said 82-year-old truck driver Donnie Breeden. He refused to vote for either Trump or Harris during this election cycle, but voted for Delzio, who he calls a Kennedy Democrat.
“He has a job to do, and he's going to do it,” Breeden said, not only by rebuilding the Ohio River's crumbling water system but also by defending unions and blaming him for it. He praised Mr. Delzio's efforts to combat “price gouging” by companies in the United States. His ballooning grocery bill.
Mix compared Delzio to a mayor.
Mr. Delzio's website boasts of $2.2 billion set aside for the district, most of it for projects funded by Mr. Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law, and 2000 cases that provided services to voters. exceeds the number of cases.
The problem for leading Democratic candidates is that floating voters don't know about them or what they've done to help them.
“There was a real effort to drive out urban voters,” Gabriel added. “Rural voters didn't feel like they were being prioritized,” said Harris, who has only visited the district once.
Gabriel said that as a woman and a liberal from San Francisco, Harris is seen as “abstract” compared to Joe Biden, a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Even veteran Sen. Casey, who shares Mr. Delzio's economic populism, underperformed in Mr. Delzio's district, narrowly losing to Mr. McCormick, who described the incumbent in a dizzying ad.weak” was ineffective, and the Pennsylvanians who had lived in Washington for nearly 18 years were out of touch.
“[Casey’s] I’m running in name only,” said Michelle, a suburban Allegheny County resident who voted for McCormick, Trump and Delzio, who helped improve local parks.
Even Breeden, who voted for Casey, said he was “leaning much more towards Chris than Casey” as he felt that Casey had been in the Senate too long.
Despite promoting progressive policies, “he works very closely with the working class,” Flynt said.
“That's what it takes to survive in Beaver County.”
And maybe Rust Belt America.
