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North Hills GOP committee mounts write-in campaign for Democratic DA Zappala [1]
['Ryan Deto']
Date: 2023-03-28 17:12:18-04:00
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Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. has taken some hits from his fellow Democrats recently, but some local Republicans are working to help him.
An email obtained by the Tribune-Review shows that a GOP committee in the North Hills is encouraging Republican primary voters to write in Zappala’s name on their ballots, even though he is a Democrat. Republicans don’t have any candidates for district attorney.
The email was written by Bob Howard, who chairs the Republican committee in Marshall.
“The reason for Zappala, he is the only alternative to a progressive DA candidate,” Howard wrote in the email.
Howard said he cleared this campaign with Allegheny County GOP Chairman Sam DeMarco.
DeMarco acknowledged that he approved Howard’s effort, but said there is no countywide effort by the Allegheny County GOP to write-in Zappala’s name.
“As a Republican chairman, I can’t support Democrats,” DeMarco said.
The Zappala campaign said it did not reach out to any Republican committees to ask for support in a write-in campaign.
Zappala campaign spokesman Mike Mikus said the district attorney has a “progressive record of standing up to right-wing politicians” who have threatened abortion rights. Mikus said Zappala also had a hand in creating new courts to help veterans, people suffering from addiction and people with mental illness receive help and counseling instead of being sent to jail.
“The difference in this race is that his opponent (Allegheny County Public Defender Matt Dugan) thinks violent crimes are no big deal while Steve Zappala is trying to keep us safe,” Mikus said.
DeMarco confirmed that Zappala’s campaign did not reach out to the Allegheny County GOP to request a write-in effort.
Zappala is being challenged by Dugan in the Democratic primary. Dugan received the Allegheny County Democratic Committee’s endorsement by a wide margin.
Dugan said write-in efforts for Zappala show that he and his supporters are scrambling. He noted that Zappala received both Democratic and Republican nominations in 2019 after Republicans wrote him on the primary ballot that year.
“He has fallen out of favor with Democratic voters,” Dugan said. “Zappala ran a write-in campaign in 2019. This is the same playbook that he ran last time.”
If enough Republican voters write in Zappala, he would appear on the election ballot in November as a Republican, even if he were to lose the Democratic primary, said Chuck Pascal, an election law expert who works on local Democratic campaigns.
Pascal said write-in candidates need to secure at least as many votes as the number of petition signatures required to get on the ballot. Zappala would need to get at least 500 Republican write-in votes and secure more than any other write-in candidate.
While the local GOP says it wants to write in Zappala to avoid a progressive candidate like Dugan from winning, Howard’s email doesn’t use that justification for its other write-in efforts.
When asked why Republicans didn’t find a registered Republican to write in for district attorney, DeMarco said finding a qualified DA candidate isn’t easy.
Even though DeMarco said the Allegheny County GOP is not officially supporting Zappala, he acknowledged that many local Republicans are backing the incumbent Democrat. DeMarco said if he were a registered Democrat, he would be voting for Zappala over Dugan.
He said crime is a big issue for Republicans. Seeing violent crime increase and move into the suburbs is enough for him and Republicans voters to be supportive of district attorney candidates such as Zappala who “don’t coddle criminals,” DeMarco said.
“There is no organized effort by (the Allegheny County GOP), but I am personally supportive of (Zappala’s) efforts to keep our citizens safe,” DeMarco said.
Dugan said he has never described himself as a progressive. He said he is running because violent crime has increased under Zappala’s tenure, and change is needed after 24 years with Zappala as district attorney.
Dugan questioned how much GOP support Zappala might garner. He said the DA’s recent call threatening to shut down the Kennywood amusement park if it doesn’t comply with his security demands might give voters pause.
“I don’t know which Republicans would support government shutting down a private business, especially one as beloved as Kennywood,” Dugan said.
Zappala has a history of courting Republican voters. After securing the Democratic and Republican nominations in 2019, Zappala met with a Young Republican group during a campaign stop, even while dodging local Democratic Party meet-ups.
In December 2022, when he kicked off his campaign, he told reporters that he had “more friends that I think are Republicans than Democrats” and that those friends have discussed whether Zappala would be endorsed by the local GOP.
Zappala said in December he would be amenable to a Republican endorsement.
“Absolutely. Criminal justice, we represent everybody,” he said.
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[1] Url:
https://triblive.com/news/politics-election/north-hills-gop-committee-mounts-write-in-campaign-for-democratic-da-zappala/
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