Pittsburgh-area Democratic delegates ages 20 to 76 confront elevated role, while Republicans retool for campaign vs. Harris

Kaylee Werner was eating lunch outside with her mother on Sunday when she heard President Joe Biden’s historic announcement that he will abandon his bid for re-election . The pair, both Democrats, meant to spend the day away from social media and news.

Her father called and told them to turn on the news. “We dropped our food and didn’t clean it up until a few hours later.”

Biden’s impending retirement gives Democrats a new, likely younger opponent for Republican nominee Donald Trump and shakes up the campaign just over 100 days before Election Day.

The news also thrust 20-year-old Werner of O’Hara — who has never even voted in a general election for president — into an unexpectedly influential position.

The Indiana University undergrad, studying business, is an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in August, one of the youngest to hold the distinction. And on Sunday, what is typically a ceremonial duty of voting for the party’s pre-determined nominee transformed into something with real consequences: With primaries over with, the 4,000-some delegates alone are tasked with selecting Biden’s replacement as Democratic nominee.

“At first I was nervous, I’ll be honest,” Werner said. “… There were talks about there being an open convention and all the theories floating around about us delegates, I was anxious about how that was all going to play out. I feel as though being almost 21 years old I have much less lived experience than all the people I am voting on behalf of.”

That anxiety eased, she said, as the party coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris as its likely new nominee, averting an uncertain convention with weighty choices. Biden and dozens of other Democratic heavyweights endorsed Harris on Sunday, and before Monday ended, Pennsylvania’s DNC delegates decided to unanimously to back Harris .

Republicans size up new foe

Through last week’s Republican National Convention, the Trump campaign and its allies tailored their 2024 campaign around opposing Biden. With Biden suddenly out and Harris in, local Republicans quickly tried to recalibrate the message.

“President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 contest is unlikely to offer the reset that his party seeks,” Allegheny County GOP Chairman Sam DeMarco said in a statement Sunday. “The policies that gave us inflation, open borders and a diminished standing in the world remain the Democratic agenda whomever the nominee.”

Dave McCormick, the GOP nominee to challenge Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, took to X Sunday night to assign responsibility to Harris for economic, public safety and immigration issues, about which he has spent months criticizing Biden.

DeMarco and other Republicans took to social media to criticize Democrats for pushing Biden to step aside, saying doing so disregards the will of millions of presidential primary voters, who overwhelmingly backed Biden this year.

But Democratic Party voters were offered few alternatives in the primaries, with almost the entire party structure deferring to its incumbent president. And recent polling showed Biden’s standing in his own party at a low point, with many, if not most respondents calling for a new nominee.

Democrats pivot

Most delegates are much older than Werner, and represent the lifeblood of the party in each state. State lawmakers, local committee chairs and activists will crowd the convention floor in Chicago.

Delegate Nancy Werme, 76, is retired from her job as elected Beaver County prothonotary and used to lead the Beaver County Democrats. She’ll attend her second Democratic convention this year, the first being in 2004 when the party nominated John Kerry.

“This is way more exciting,” she said in an interview less than 24 hours after Biden announced his retirement.

Almost two weeks earlier, she told PublicSource, “I am ridin’ with Biden,” criticizing some in the party for calling on Biden to step aside. She said she was disappointed by his June 27 debate performance. “But I don’t care. I care about his policies.”

Werme was driving home from a vacation in Virginia when she heard the news Sunday.

“Part of me was disappointed because I have been with Biden every time he ran,” she said, citing his blue collar roots and the way he handled the tragic death of his wife and child early in his career.

But, she said, “It was probably for the best” for Biden to step aside. She said she is excited to vote for Harris, citing her qualifications as a former prosecutor and senator.

Nick Pisciottano, a convention delegate and state House member from West Mifflin, said the party’s pivot from Biden could gin up more interest and enthusiasm for what was a Democratic ticket in need of both.

“There’s just a lot more engagement from people who realize that this is a historic situation and they’re interested in seeing how this chapter of American democracy gets written,” said Pisciottano, who is running to fill an open state Senate seat this fall. “There’s a lot of excitement about what this means for the ticket in the fall.”

Excitement translated to money for Harris early on, with more than $80 million pouring into the vice president’s campaign in the first day after the shakeup.

Werner, who said in early July that she had confidence in Biden serving another term because he would surround himself with “the right type of administration,” said Monday that “everybody took a big sigh of relief” after Biden stepped aside.

“I do believe Kamala Harris is going to be a better person to run against Donald Trump,” Werner said. “When we look at the game of chess that is politics, we need to align our pieces just right. Everyone was a bit worried in the days following the debate that we weren’t in the right position, and I think we are now.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org .

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