Suburban Pennsylvania race a microcosm of national political battle

By: Salena Zito | Washington Examiner

MT. LEBANON, Pennsylvania — When you are a new candidate running for office and it is about 100 days before Election Day, there are basically two things you are doing: knocking on doors and asking people if they would consider voting for you or sitting in an office and raising money.

Devlin Robinson, the Republican candidate for the District 37 state Senate seat in Pennsylvania, was in this suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood doing the former with a handful of volunteers when he spotted a wallet in the street.

“It had definitely been run over a few times,” said Robinson of its tattered condition.

He said he opened it to see if there was an address or contact information inside.

There was, which is when things got interesting. The wallet belonged to his opponent, Pam Iovino, the sitting Pennsylvania state senator he is running against.

He called to tell her he was dropping it off but didn’t tell her his name. As neither have ever been together in person, he was unsure she would even recognize him, and he was okay with that.

“It was kind of funny," he explained. "I was wearing a mask, and because we'd never really met before, I wondered, especially with the mask on, if she would know who I was."

“As soon as I got out of the car, she looked at me, and she's like, ‘No, Devlin.’ And we had a good laugh. And she said, "Oh, this is so funny. How about that? What are the chances?"

The seat for which the two are competing is in a traditional swing district, nestled in the leafy suburbs of Pittsburgh. It has the perfect ingredients to keep candidates and incumbents on their feet: leafy wealthy suburbs, tidy, post-World War II working-class bedroom communities built to accommodate the coming baby boom, and a healthy mix of union households too.

In 2019, Iovino won a special election with guidance from the Allegheny County Labor Council that stressed fixing roads and bridges. The message suited this district.

Her Republican opponent, D. Raja, ran an ill-advised, nationalized campaign tying Iovino, a Navy veteran, to radical congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and it failed miserably.

Robinson says his race will be all about local issues, in particular how communities, workers, and business owners navigate the emotional and economic losses the coronavirus has caused most of them and what the appropriate role is for local elected officials in solving the mounting challenges.

This is a seat that doesn’t let one party spend too much sitting in it. Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, a Navy veteran, held the state Senate seat until 2018, when he was elected to Congress. Reschenthaler succeeded Democrat Matt Smith, a moderate who is now the president of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce.

Iovino has two challenges: a weak campaign persona and the effects that Gov. Tom Wolf’s policies may have had on her constituents. While Wolf, a Democrat, remains personally popular in this district, it is unclear how voters feel about his policies.

Robinson’s challenge is also twofold: beating an incumbent and defining himself outside the spectacle of President Trump.

“Jobs. I am running on job creation for this district and making sure our infrastructure is always a priority,” he said, adding, “Right now, small businesses are being strangled. The COVID pandemic is of great concern to people, and so is the toll it is taking on small businesses.”

Robinson grew up in the Brookline neighborhood of Pittsburgh, attended Resurrection School and Central Catholic High School, and felt the pull of service throughout his childhood. While he was a lifeguard at the local wave pool, he knew he was ready to join the Marines.

“I graduated high school in June of 2001, and I signed up and took the [Marines] oath July 27, 2001,” he said, noting that his ship-out date for boot camp came just over a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“I called my recruiter that afternoon and said I wanted to change my contract from this security guard in the embassies around the world to just straight infantry because I wanted to go overseas and fight.”

Robinson served four years and did three tours, the first one in 2003, where he was one of the first soldiers to cross into Iraq from Kuwait on the evening of March 19.

He said that while he was in the military, he changed his political party from Democrat to Republican.

“As soon as I went over to Iraq, I decided I couldn't be a Democrat anymore, and I switched to independent. And then I finally switched to Republican.”

Robinson has owned a business in Bridgeville, a medical leasing equipment company, since 2006.

He said he still had the bug to serve: “My older brother is a Marine. He's a helicopter pilot. My younger brother is a police officer. My dad was in the Marine Corps during Vietnam, and his career was corrections. I guess we don’t like the mundane in my family. We like to serve our country and our communities.”

The 37-year-old said he believes his generation and candidates like him are the future of the Republican Party.

“We need to bring the conservative movement back to the base with a message of being pro-business and also stress a life of self-determination," Robinson said. "If you want to start a business and work hard, you should be able to reap the benefits of your labor.”

Furthermore: “I want to see small business and the economy flourish in western Pennsylvania. I want to be a voice for western Pennsylvania in Harrisburg.”

He said he sees Iovino voting along party lines with eastern Pennsylvania Democrats as problematic for her.

This is the kind of race to watch to keep an eye on. The results from voting in suburbs like this one will tell us if candidates like Robinson are able to separate themselves from Trump and build a constituency for Republicans for 2022 and 2024.

If a candidate like Iovino holds her seat in 2020, does that mean moderates rule again in the Democratic Party, or did she just benefit from not being attached to Trump? And will her own future be determined by how willing Democrats are to have officeholders who aren’t with them on every issue?

Either way, both parties are inching away from the men who are running at the top of the ticket. It is races like this that help us understand what is next.