Allegheny County Democrats voted decisively Sunday to give Kate Garfinkel and John Ukenye full four-year terms leading the party’s county committee as chair and vice chair.
Garfinkel and Ukenye beat their rivals, Frank Porco and Darlene Yanakos, by margins of more than two-to-one after five hours of voting at the IBEW Local #5 hall in the South Side. While few rank-and-file voters may take an interest in the outcomes of such contests, they can suggest the local party’s direction in the years ahead.
The outcome is “a mandate from the committee members who like to see a professionally run organization with high ethics that is willing to come together and get Democrats elected,” said Garfinkel.
“We’re moving the party forward and not backward,” she added.
The committee is the party’s apparatus in Allegheny County, a crucial bastion of Democratic votes not just in local races but in statewide and national contests as well. It is made up of committeepeople who represent each of the county’s roughly 1,300 voting districts. They act as party foot soldiers, providing support with voter turnout and education while also taking part in endorsement votes that communicate support in contested primaries.
Turnout on Sunday was robust: Some 1,033 committee members cast ballots, or roughly two-thirds of the committee members eligible to vote. While several ballots were set aside for procedural reasons, Garfinkel won 685 to 279; Ukenye’s own margin was nearly the same.
Porco said he took some satisfaction in that turnout, despite the final outcome.
“I think it speaks to the fact that people sat up, took notice, and got involved,” he said.
“A lot of great conversations were had about unification of the party and strengthening the party,” he said. “A lot of people do feel that is a priority now, and I hope that that remains the priority of the current chair and vice chair.”
Porco’s challenge was backed by a number of more moderate-to-conservative Democrats who have viewed the party’s progressive turn in recent years with wariness. Former state House of Representatives Whip Mike Veon, who has remained active in state and local politics, was a key organizer of that effort.
But Garfinkel and Ukunye had the backing of key Democratic officeholders, including both of the county’s representatives in Congress, Chris Deluzio and Summer Lee, as well as County Executive Sara Innamorato and Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor.
Garfinkel previously served as the party’s vice chair, but she took the helm after then-chair, Sam Hens-Greco, stepped down this past winter. The timing of the move irked some committee members, who saw it as an effort to give Garfinkel an inside track to the election Sunday. But even skeptics credited Garfinkel, of Fox Chapel, for being a more visible presence at local party gatherings in the months since.
Garfinkel pledged to continue those efforts. “That’s one of the benefits of running a campaign like this … getting to know the local people in the communities,” she said.
Committee leadership is chosen once every four years, after committee members themselves are elected in the gubernatorial primary. In recent years, control of the party has been swapped among leaders with varying connections to the party’s more conservative old guard and a new generation of progressive leaders.
Democrats on both sides of that divide were awake to the possibility of another swing of the pendulum after a number of contested primaries in May seemed to involve more moderate challengers. Several races in Pittsburgh’s East End involved candidates backed by the Beacon Coalition, a pro-Israel group that positions itself as an opponent of antisemitic and anti-democratic forces in politics, and that has at times sharply criticized progressive Democrats.
Porco’s own focus was on the importance of filling vacant committee seats — nearly one-half of the seats countywide are vacant — and seeking to restore the committee to some of its old stature.
In an interview with WESA before the vote, he said he hoped to establish more frequent discussions between elected officials and committee members. And he said he hoped to connect the party to its base outside liberal bastions: “A lot of people feel they aren’t getting the help they need, and that they are forgotten.”
But Garfinkel’s convincing win Sunday suggests that, at least within the committee’s ranks, there’s been only limited impact from the backlash to the party’s ideological and generational shift. (As one observer joked while committee members filed in to vote, “The committee’s changed a lot: Most of these people are walking in.”)
After her win Sunday, Garfinkel stressed the importance of building the party’s capacity to field resources on behalf of its candidates. She said she hoped to add to the committee’s staff of one full-time person, “and we could then make their services available to candidates” who need additional resources.
In general, she added, “I think we’re gonna make the party more inclusive and just continue to move forward.”
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