Redistricting pinned two incumbent House members against one another in Allegheny County, reopening the blue collar-vs-progressive battle in the Pittsburgh area.
With the results in, it is clear that incumbent Rep. Harry Readshaw (D-Allegheny) won the Democratic primary by 20 points, 60% to 40%. The final vote total was 3,821 to 2,536.
His challenger, current HD-22 Rep. Erin Molchany (D-Allegheny), conceded Tuesday night after the outcome became official.
“Just because I didn’t win this one doesn’t mean I’m not going to continue fighting,” Molchany said. “It doesn’t mean I’m not going to work any less hard as a State Legislature.”
She also added that this election was “only the beginning.”
Molchany, 36, had the backing of Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald along with a variety of progressive organizations.
Readshaw had the support of trades unions and firefighters unions.
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So now with Deberah Kula moving (hopefully) to the PA Senate, we are down to having just ONE Democratic woman in the PA House from the entire western two-thirds of the state, with a creepy old undertaker knocking out one of the best young legislators we had, to stay in power. Congratulations, old boys. Big win for you.
And people wonder why more and more Democratic women and young voters are staying home from the polls.
Take that Keystone Politics/Pac! Congratulations to Rep Readshaw for prevailing even though far left sources outside the district were hard up to unseat him. Nothing against Rep Molchany, she is a class act it’s those who supported her who rubbed me the wrong way. There’s room for some conservative views in the party, if we shut the door on Democrats like Readshaw it would just bring more people to the Republican party. And that is the last thing working class people need is more Republicans!
It’s almost comical that this article has no Readshaw quotes