The Tartan

On April 23, Pennsylvania will hold its primary elections. The winners of these races will be on the ballot in the November general election.

Primary elections determine the options voters face in the fall. This primary, Pittsburgh voters will choose Democrat or Republican candidates to serve as the U.S. president, U.S. representative, state auditor general, state attorney general, state treasurer, and more. 

College students in Pennsylvania can vote in Pennsylvania. Students must have registered to vote by April 8. If a student registers in Pennsylvania, they may also keep their voter registration in their home state, as long as they only vote in one state’s election.

President of the United States

This year is a presidential election year. Currently, there is only one candidate for each party — current president Joseph Biden for the Democrats and former president Donald Trump for the Republicans. 

Pennsylvania U.S. Representative 12th District

The primary election will be a race between current representative Summer Lee and her challenger Bhavini Patel. This is widely seen as an election between progressive and moderate Democrats. The 12th district includes most of Allegheny County — including Pittsburgh — and some of Westmoreland County. 

Summer Lee

Summer Lee is the first Black woman from Southwestern Pennsylvania to be elected to Congress. She was raised in North Braddock, just east of Pittsburgh. In Congress, she serves as a vice-chair of the Equal Rights Amendment Caucus and a co-chair within the Congressional Black Caucus, among other caucus and committee involvements. 

On her website, she listed environmental justice, economic justice and union jobs, and criminal justice reform as some of her top issues. In response to surveys, she has said that she wants to further advocate for improving infrastructure, protecting abortion access, and increasing transparency in politics. Lee has also expressed disagreement with American funding to Israel and condemned the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisions in Gaza, calling for a cease-fire.

Bhavini Patel

Bhavini Patel grew up in Monroeville and currently serves on the Edgewood Borough Council. She describes herself as rejecting the extremist perspective that she believes Lee takes and wants to stop in-fighting within the Democratic party.

Some key issues Patel said she believes in are gun violence prevention, reproductive justice, and union jobs. In a debate, Patel explained that she supports sending aid to Gaza and the West Bank, and that she thinks Representative Lee has not done enough to support the Jewish community after Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Patel has not called for a cease-fire in Gaza. The Israel-Hamas war is an issue on which Patel and Lee are sharply divided.

There is only one Republican candidate running for the 12th district seat, James Hayes, who will run against either Lee or Patel in November.

Pennsylvania U.S. Representative 14th District

The 14th Congressional district includes all of Greene County, Washington County, Fayette County, and parts of Indiana, Somerset, and Westmoreland counties. It is currently represented by Republican Guy Reschenthaler, who does not have a Republican challenger. The two Democratic candidates up for election in the primaries are Ken Bach and Chris Dziados. 

Ken Bach

Ken Bach served for four years in the Navy in Israel and Lebanon in the 1980s. He currently owns an auto repair shop in Smithton, Pennsylvania. The issues important to him are education, improving the economy, and working to combat wealth inequality. 

Bach also expressed that he is pro-choice, wants better access to birth control, and believes that supporting young people to pay off debt and buy property will help with his ultimate goal of reducing abortion.

Chris Dziados

Chris Dziados is an Army veteran who served in Iraq. His policy priorities are economic growth in southwest Pennsylvania, clean energy, supporting families and children, and protecting democracy.

Dziados said that supporting technology investments in southwest Pennsylvania will benefit the region and bring back good-paying skilled jobs that have gone overseas.

Dziados told The Tartan that another priority of his is ending the burden of student loan debt on college students.

“I’m trying to remove barriers and unleash American potential,” Dziados said. “We need to prepare students for the artificial intelligence and automation labor market so that we can compete globally and be the country that people turn to … as the shining light of democracy and innovation.”

Pennsylvania Attorney General

There are five Democrats and two Republicans running for attorney general. The attorney general is in charge of general law enforcement in the commonwealth, collecting taxes and debts, and more. Common issues that fall under the attorney general include consumer protection and drug trafficking prosecution. 

Keir Bradford-Grey

Keir Bradford-Grey is a Democrat running on a campaign about fighting for the rights and protections of everyday people. She was appointed by Governor Josh Shapiro as the chief defender for Montgomery County, then continued her career as a public defender in Philadelphia. She said some key issues for her are gun violence, challenging corporate polluters, and stopping wage theft.

Eugene DePasquale

Eugene DePasquale is a Democrat from the Pittsburgh region. DePasquale served for two terms as the Pennsylvania auditor general. He also believes that gun violence is a major problem and that corporate greed should be stopped in favor of consumer protections. Reproductive justice, climate change policy, and supporting unions are also important to DePasquale.

Joe Khan

Joe Khan is a Democrat and a prosecutor. He has served for six years in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office and for 10 years in the U.S. attorney’s office. Khan takes a strong stance on environmental protection and housing access. He has said that, if elected to office, he would create a Housing Justice Unit and restructure the Environmental Crimes Unit to prevent environmental crimes. 

Jared Solomon

Jared Solomon is a Democrat who claims he would be the most accessible attorney general if elected. Currently, he serves in the Pennsylvania National Guard. He has written that he believes the opioid crisis is one of the biggest threats facing Pennsylvania. He supports the legalization of marijuana and protecting the right to abortion access. Solomon also said that he would strongly prosecute environmental criminals if in office.

Jack Stollsteimer

Jack Stollsteimer is the fifth Democratic candidate. He has worked with district attorney offices for 20 years as a prosecutor. Stollsteimer is passionate about reducing gun violence and reforming the criminal justice system.

In his career, he has turned a for-profit prison into a public one, created the first Environmental Crimes Unit in Pennsylvania, and prosecuted contractors due to wage theft. He claims that reproductive justice is also important to him.

Dave Sunday

Dave Sunday is a Republican who has worked as a prosecutor and is a Navy veteran. In his career, he has fought against the opioid epidemic, worked for scam prevention, and prosecuted murderers.

Sunday is also on the board of the York County Children’s Advocacy Center, and he has served on the Pennsylvania Commission for Crime and Delinquency’s Mental Health and Justice Advisory Committee.

Craig Williams

Craig Williams is the second Republican on the ballot. He is also a prosecutor, and he has served in the Marine Corps. Some issues he has worked on include gun violence, human trafficking, and drug cartels. Williams led a movement to impeach the Philadelphia district attorney because he claimed he was “soft on crime.”

Pennsylvania Auditor General

Two Democrats are running against each other in this primary race, with only one Republican candidate who will go to the general election. The auditor general is responsible for managing all fiscal matters of Pennsylvania. They ensure that all state money is spent properly.

Malcolm Kenyatta

Malcolm Kenyatta is a Pennsylvania state representative. Raised in Philadelphia, he is the first openly gay Black person to run for U.S. Senate. Some key issues he believes in are education, worker’s rights, ending government corruption, and enacting gun safety policies.

In office, Kenyatta has said that he would re-form a Bureau of School Audits and support organized labor. His website said that his main goal as auditor general would be to “measure and support efforts to make communities healthier and safer,” as well as making the office support working families.

Mark Pinsley

Mark Pinsley highlights his law degree and background in finance as one of the chief reasons why people should vote for him. He plans to look into issues mismanaged funds in healthcare, education, elections, workforce development, and childcare.

Pinsley has worked in Lehigh as the County Controller and argues that his experience would be more useful than Kenyatta’s experience in Philadelphia, a Democratic area.

Pennsylvania State Treasurer

This year, the Democratic nominee for state treasurer will be up against Republican incumbent Stacy Garrity. The treasurer oversees the financial budget of the state, and decides how to put the money into public funds to benefit the people.

Ryan Bizzarro

Ryan Bizzarro has served in the U.S. Congress as a state representative for 10 years. His key policy issues are protecting the state’s assets from fraud, guarding programs like 529 plans and low-interest loans, increasing public financial literacy, and returning unclaimed property to Pennsylvanians. Bizzarro has also said that he wants to establish regional treasurer offices around the commonwealth to connect people to programs and legislators. 

Erin McClelland

Erin McClelland was raised in Allegheny County and worked for 15 years as a mental health and substance abuse counselor. In 2015, she began working in policy for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. Her main objective is rebuilding the supply chain, with a focus on eliminating human rights abuses and making legislation more flexible to people’s needs and wants.

You can find your polling place at www.vote.pa.gov to vote on Tuesday, April 23.