How a Bernie Sanders delegate survived Donald Trump’s red wave in Pennsylvania

PITTSBURGH – Representative Chris DeLuzio faced similar economic adversities as vice president kamala harrisSen. bob casey and two other swing-district House Democrats, but he escaped the red wave that swept Pennsylvania and the country.

Democrats may take many lessons from the 17th Congressional District race, but Deluzio told The Post they agree on one thing: “You have to have a clear economic vision.”

For Deluzio, this means his leftist brand of economic populism: fighting corporate power, defending the union way of life. And although it’s inspired by Bernie Sanders, his supporters don’t care.

He just wants Harris and other Democrats to accept it.

the economy was top of mind In the elections of 2024. Years of inflation under President Biden had left Americans poorer, and polls repeatedly showed they trusted President-elect Donald Trump more than Harris to right the ship.

Yet the Harris campaign prioritized attacking Trump as a threat to abortion rights and democracy.

“People didn’t need to hear this. People need to hear more about the economy,” Hillary Flint, an environmental organizer in economically depressed Beaver County, where Harris lost by 21 points, told The Post.

And what people heard about Harris’ promised “opportunity economy” — policies ranging from housing subsidies to small-business tax breaks — went over their heads, Flint said, while voters turned to Trump. The oft-repeated word “tariff” stuck to it like moths to a flame. For a flame.

Exit polls show that Democrats lost the working-class vote – both non-college-educated voters and those who make less than $100,000 a year.

“They’re just not communicating with working-class people and trying to win back the people they lost to Trump,” said Flint, the Harris voter who used to preach to the choir and listen to Mark Cuban. Criticizes Veep for promoting with.” Taylor Swift and other elites.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic socialist, said, “It should be no big surprise that a Democratic Party that has abandoned working-class people will find that the working class has abandoned them.” Said The day after Harris lost.

But Deluzio won — in part because of Sanders’ influence.

Deluzio centered his campaign around union workers and railed against corporate “Jagoffs” – Pittsburgh-ese for jerks.

With this strategy Dem won the support of the Pittsburgh Regional Building Trades Council — and even the votes of some Trump ticket-splitters.

The freshman representative outperformed the vice president in his vast swing district, including the college-educated suburbs northwest of Pittsburgh.

But his biggest margin over Harris was in blue-collar Beaver County, where the steel industry long ago moved out and gradually turned the former Union Democratic stronghold into Trump-red.

Although Deluzio lost to Beaver by approximately 13,600 votes, Harris lost by approximately 20,000 votes.

Democratic strategist Mike Mikus told The Post that means something kept those Trump voters from voting straight for the GOP to stick with Deluzio.

Appealing to voters outside more affluent Pittsburgh who feel fed up with Washington and Wall Street, Deluzio and Trump were “fundamentally fighting on the same playing field,” Mikus said.

Deluzio acknowledged that he takes advantage of the same populist anger that Trump does — but from the left. He cursed Washington for “lousy trade deals” that killed union jobs and politicians who made money for corporate America.

Instead of blaming inflation on Biden’s historic spending, Deluzio criticized corporations for price-gouging and praised the administration’s trust-busting — while Harris campaigned with billionaire Mark Cuban, who said he would support Biden. will dismiss Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Leena Khan,

“There needs to be a much greater commitment to fighting monopolies and holding back corporate power,” said DeLuzio, who was Bernie Sanders’s delegate to the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

He sees that fight as tied to giving workers more bargaining power, protecting small businesses and lowering prices for consumers.

Despite once expressing his “Bernie Bro” sympathies on a podcast, “He doesn’t come across as a socialist,” said Erin Gabriel, chair of the Beaver County Democrats.

While Sanders ran for president in 2020 on a campaign to replace private health insurance with government-run Medicare for All, Gabriel said Deluzio “understands that we need to fix our health care system before we do anything big. “

The 40-year-old representative is a Navy veteran who served in Iraq and organized the University of Pittsburgh faculty union with the United Steelworkers. And the Italian-American father of four also refuses to associate with anti-Israel progressives like Squad member Rep. Summer Lee of Pittsburgh, instead calling himself a “Western Pennsylvania Democrat.”

“We think Chris was more to the center,” said Mike Slavianowski, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Allegheny County Lodge 91, which endorsed both Deluzio and Republican Senator-elect Dave McCormick.

That perception made it difficult for Deluzio’s GOP opponent Rob Mercuri to portray him as “liberal extremistGOP consultant Dennis Roddy said, “Or defund the police Democrats – messages that worked to take down other Pennsylvania Democrats like McCormick’s opponent, Senator Bob Casey.”

But most importantly, Deluzio executed his ideas and made his presence felt.

Coming to Congress after Democrats lost control of the House in the 2022 midterms, DeLuzio was given the political gift of a lifetime: a toxic train derailment across the border in East Palestine, Ohio.

Practically on the first day, Gabriel said, “he was on the ground, in people’s living rooms, holding hands with families,” Deluzio said, working with him on bringing drinking water to affected residents in his district. Recalling said.

Deluzio worked with the volunteer fire department, introduced bipartisan railway-safety legislation in Congress, and raised voice against the industry In the advertisements, his anti-monopoly politics is being linked to the plumes of smoke emanating from the tracks.

This left an impact on the Trump-supporting county, which moved another point after Deluzio’s previous victory in this election.

“We disagree on what to eat for breakfast, but we agree that rail regulations need to be made,” said Republican Supervisor Mike Carrion of Darlington, who did not vote for Deluzio but voted for Biden. Was his guest at the State of the Union.

“People in Beaver are really going to vote for the person they know, not the political party they like,” Gabriel said.

Biden has not ventured into East Palestine for more than a year, Flint said, which “hurts people’s view of Harris.”

But Deluzio rejected that trend.

“He’s for the people,” said 82-year-old truck driver Donnie Breeden, who declined to vote for Trump or Harris this election cycle but cast his ballot for Deluzio, whom he called a Kennedy Democrat.

“He’s got a job to do, and he’s trying to do it,” said Breeden, who praised DeLuzio’s efforts to not only rebuild crumbling water systems on the Ohio River, but to protect unions. and praised Deluzio’s efforts to fight corporate “price-gouging”, for which he is blamed. Her increased grocery bills.

Mikus compared Deluzio to the mayor.

DeLuzio’s website claims to have secured $2.2 billion for his district, primarily for projects funded by Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure legislation, and to serve constituents in more than 2,000 cases.

The problem for the big names in the Democratic slate is that swing voters didn’t know them or what they did to help them.

“There was a real pressure to turn out urban voters,” Gabriel said, “and rural voters did not receive priority – Harris only visited the district once.”

Gabriel said that as a woman and a liberal from San Francisco, Harris was seen as “intangible” compared to Joe Biden of Scranton, Penn.

Even veteran Sen. Casey, who shares DeLuzio’s economic populism, performed poorly in DeLuzio’s district and lost by a slim margin to McCormick, whose surprise ads made the incumbent “weak,” ineffective and out of touch with Pennsylvanians after nearly 18 years in Washington.

“(Casey) is running in name only,” said Mitchell, an Allegheny County suburbanite who voted for McCormick, Trump and Deluzio, who she said helped improve parks in her community.

Even Breeden, who voted for Casey, said he was “leaning more toward Chris than Casey” because he felt Casey had been in the Senate too long.

Despite pursuing progressive policies, “he’s working very closely with the working class,” Flint said.

“This is what you need to do to survive in Beaver County.”

And maybe Rust Belt America.