Democrats need to find a candidate with a base to defeat Summer Lee

PITTSBURGH — When Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) faced Steve Irwin in the 2022 Democratic primary contest for the congressional seat that had been held by Mike Doyle since 1995, she had one thing he did not: a base of support.

Lee had been a community organizer and then a state representative before she ran for that seat. Irwin was a well-liked labor lawyer in the community and liberal much in the same way Doyle was, but he had no history of anyone ever voting for him.

Remarkably, he made it a close race in the 12th Congressional District, which includes the city of Pittsburgh, left-leaning suburbs, and a patch of Westmoreland County. Still, the more politically experienced Lee won by a hair.

By the time this past year’s primary came and went, Lee easily trounced her new opponent, Bhavini Patel, a councilwoman for a tiny borough who also had not much of a base of support to rely on in a low-turnout contest.

Lee, a controversial member of Congress’s left-wing “ Squad ” with a record of deep concern to supporters of Israel, is well supported by a surge of far-left progressives who have taken over what was once a storied Democratic Party in Allegheny County but that now is occupied by voters and candidates nowhere near the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

However, because they have a base, and because the Democratic Party fell asleep at the wheel for the past eight years, the old guard is gone and the new one has the power and the candidates.

Lee is very similar to her fellow Squad member, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who pulled off a win last week in her primary race against former Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels. Samuels, too, lacked an avidly organized voter base.

Lee, like Omar, is sitting on the catbird seat at the same time her fellow Squad members are falling off. Two weeks ago, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) went down decisively, a stinging loss that led her to deliver a defiant and hate-filled rant in which she vowed to the Jewish interest group AIPAC, “I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”

The quote Bush used is a direct reference to a gospel song warning to Satan.

In June, Squad Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) also lost, just days after he gave a fiery rally filled with vulgarity in an attempt to rally his supporters for that primary contest. Westchester County Executive George Latimer defeated him by well over 10,000 votes, making him the first member of the progressive group to face an electoral loss.

Bowman barreled onto the scene in July 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Supported by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), he primaried and defeated Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, a prominent Israel supporter.

He is best remembered for setting off a fire alarm at the U.S. Capitol, which forced the evacuation of a House office building, and then lying about it despite having been caught on camera doing it. He was censured by his House colleagues in December of last year.

As for Lee in Pennsylvania, she rolled into power tactically. With the backing of the Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America chapter and her community activism work in the Mon Valley, she decided to challenge longtime Democratic state Rep. Paul Costa. She won by challenging him in a low-turnout primary and, more importantly, catching him and the Democratic establishment off guard.

The establishment missed that the left-wing challengers in their party were patient, organized, and strategic. What Democrats here locally are still missing is finding a candidate with a base who can challenge her.

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What made Bush and Bowman fall was not that they were challenged by the old-style liberal, rather than progressive, governing wing of their party. It was that they were challenged by people with governing experience who had a base.

Until someone who holds a row office in the city or county such as Rachael Heisler, the Pittsburgh controller, or Corey O’Connor, the Allegheny County controller, both of whom are effective at governing and have solid bases of support, runs for the seat, Lee will remain in Congress.