In state House District 35, covering Allegheny County, both Democrats and Republicans complained about DOGE-driven government cuts and tariffs.
MUNHALL, Pa.—In the quiet suburban sprawl of Pittsburgh is one of the most important counties on the U.S. electoral map: Allegheny County, with its population of 1.2 million.
Allegheny County is a confluence of demographics that define national politics: urban professionals, steel workers, college students, retirees, and unionized labor. Despite its Democratic lean, a shift in support here—even by a few votes—can change the outcome of Pennsylvania’s elections, which are seeing ever narrower margins.
President Donald Trump gained such votes in the 2024 election, and they helped him win.
Two months after Trump’s second administration began, Allegheny County will be back at the polls on March 25 to vote for a new state representative.
The death of state Rep. Matthew Gergely (D-McKeesport) on Jan. 19 created a vacancy for his seat in House District 35, which covers the towns of Munhall, McKeesport, and Homestead, among others.
State House elections are usually local affairs, with candidates focused on community-based issues over national political currents. Special elections are even more intricate, with most voters unaware of them and turnout quite low. But with Trump’s moves to restructure the federal government, the effect of federal policies on the state is top of voters’ minds.
The Trump administration has shocked many by the scale and pace of its initiatives to reduce the federal government’s size and spending, prompting criticism at town halls across the country. Voters in both Allegheny County and Pennsylvania writ large enabled this outcome, and their view on Trump’s performance is a cue for the national political climate.
Moreover, as a sign of Pennsylvania’s fine political divide, Gergely’s death also deadlocked the state House of Representatives—at 101 Democrats to 101 Republicans. The party that wins this seat will, thus, control the state Legislature, which must consider Gov. Josh Shapiro’s last full budget proposal before he runs for reelection. The voters of District 35, therefore, have extraordinary influence on the state’s political future.
The Epoch Times visited District 35 to speak with the candidates, the voters, and Pennsylvania’s political leaders on this crucial political battle.
DOGE and Tariffs
Trump’s cuts to federal government spending, spearheaded by Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), elicited much disapproval from both Republicans and Democrats in the district who spoke to The Epoch Times.
“I don’t agree with some of the stuff. He’s just going in and just wiping out whole institutions and everything. I mean, it should be more slowed down; see what you really need,” Chuck Davis, the Republican nominee in the special election, told The Epoch Times at a campaign event on March 21. “People are concerned with it.”
Davis’s view stands in contrast with most other Republican officeholders nationwide, who praise the administration’s efforts to downsize or shut down agencies it identified as unnecessary or excessive, such as the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Agency for International Development, amid record national debt.
Similarly, Republican voters in the district expressed hesitancy at the measures, even if they supported Trump’s overall project for a smaller and more efficient federal government.
“I just don’t like the speed at which they’re doing it. [They’re] putting everybody into a panic because they’re doing too much at once,” said Mary Tomasic, a resident of McKeesport and registered Republican. “It’s going a little too fast, [and] in an economically suppressed area like this, it’s scary to people.”
Local Democrats, echoing the sentiments of their fellow party member across the country, are opposed to the Trump administration’s federal cuts and tariffs.
The Allegheny County Democratic Committee has been consistently publishing and sharing posts critical of such policies on social media.
“Republicans must love chaos, tariffs and what they are doing to [America],” the Allegheny County Democratic Committee wrote on March 12.
Allegheny, and Pittsburgh in particular, are the heart of Pennsylvania’s erstwhile steel industry, which was the backbone of the local economy. An exodus of many factories and jobs for more than 50 years has undermined the premise of many communities.
Allegheny, like neighboring Ohio, is a quintessential example of post-industrial America, to which Trump successfully appealed on the promise of tariffs to revitalize manufacturing and local jobs.
“Ever since the [steel mills] closed down, which was the main source of income in this area, you know, things have been going downhill,” Tomasic said.
The announcement of tariffs has been followed by higher grocery prices nationwide and stock market volatility—and Democrats have criticized Trump for those results. Whether they’ve been caused by tariff fears or not is immaterial to Allegheny voters. Politically, they attribute higher grocery prices to them.
“All these tariffs, how is this making the country better? It isn’t,” said Donna Benius, a resident of Munhall who voted by mail for the Democratic nominee in the election. “The cost of everything keeps going up. … I don’t know how people with families get by. I truly do not know how they can even buy food.”
Benius questioned the logic of tariffs.
“The reason the companies left the United States was [that] they couldn’t pay wages to the people to keep the company running. What’s going to make a company start up in the United States again, when everything is so expensive?” she said.
“Prices are just going up and up. It seems like nothing’s stopping it.”
Brian Fodor, a Republican, told The Epoch Times “the economy is horrible.”
“It’s horrible over here,” he said as he exited a liquor store, lamenting the increase in the cost of the beer he had purchased.
“I think, eventually, the tariffs and all this stuff is going to work well, but it’s a little bumpy right now,” Davis said. “I think in the long run, it’s going to do good.”
The Epoch Times met Dan Goughnour, the Democratic nominee in the election, at his campaign office, but his staff declined to permit a verbal interview for this article.
His campaign told The Epoch Times in a statement that the top issue in the district and his priority is the cost of living. He did not mention tariffs or any other issues.
Control of the State House
Ahead of the special election, control in the Pennsylvania General Assembly remains divided. Whereas the House of Representatives is deadlocked, Republicans have a two-seat majority in the state Senate, with one vacancy in a Republican district. Should the party win District 35, it will gain control of the Legislature and severely undercut Shapiro’s political leverage.
After winning all statewide elections in 2024—for U.S. senator and the “row offices” of state attorney general, auditor general, and treasurer—the GOP is looking to unseat Shapiro, a rising star in the Democratic Party who was a finalist for the vice presidential nomination in 2024 and is up for reelection in 2026.
“It changes everything,” state Sen. Greg Rothman, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, said in an interview with The Epoch Times at a campaign event for Davis. “At that point, we’re not negotiating with the Democrats; we’re negotiating directly with Gov. Shapiro, and we can pass whatever budget we want, and he’s got to agree.”
If they win control of the House, Republicans intend to focus on energy issues—specifically by withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade system that imposes a price on energy producers for carbon emission. The plan is Shapiro’s signature initiative to address climate concerns but has been heavily criticized by state Senate Republicans.
“We’re trying to unleash the domestic energy in Pennsylvania by having more natural gas and bringing back coal fired energy. We can do that if we have a Republican Legislature,” Rothman said. Apart from coal, natural gas—specifically by hydraulic fracking—is a major industry in the state.
“Gov. Shapiro and Democrats in the State House are not doing things to help support that industry,” Jondavid Longo, mayor of Slippery Rock, told The Epoch Times. He was campaigning for Davis in District 35.
“Many people in this district work in oil and gas,” he said.
“They are under threat of losing their jobs because of disastrous policies like RGGI that are making oil and gas production in Pennsylvania very hard and less than profitable.”
Shapiro wrote in December 2023, “We must reject the false choice between protecting jobs and protecting our planet.”
“We can embrace the Commonwealth’s role as an energy leader, create good paying jobs, and fulfill our constitutional obligation to protect Pennsylvania’s clean air and pure water,” the governor wrote, as quoted by RGGI’s website.
Reviews of Fetterman
Beyond policy issues, the performance of U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was a subject of interest for voters for future elections. Before joining the Senate in 2023, Fetterman was the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and the mayor of Braddock, a town in Allegheny County.
Fetterman has, of late, dissented from several Democratic Party consensus positions, such as by embracing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during Israel’s ongoing armed conflict with terrorist group Hamas. Fetterman also voted in support of the Laken Riley Act, a bill to increase the detention of illegal immigrants in the United States, and supported a recent government spending bill that imposed significant cuts to social programs, which has since divided the Democratic Party.
In his home county, voters of both parties appeared impressed by Fetterman, even as he has earned the scorn of some Democrats for his contrarian views.
“He was in favor of the [continuing resolution] and not shutting down the government. I think that was a very reasonable position,” said James Hayes, the Republican nominee for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, which is held by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and covers much of the county.
“I believe [he’s on] the right side in terms of support of Israel. That’s very consistent with the area he lives in. … We have one of the largest Jewish communities [in the state],” Hayes added, although he criticized Fetterman on other issues.
Rothman, as state party chairman, said he was actively courting Fetterman to switch party affiliation, though Fetterman has said he’s not interested in changing parties.
“I’ve heard Democrats rumbling he’s going to get a primary, and they’re going to primary him from the left,” Rothman said.
“His best bet is to become a Republican, so we welcome him.”
Benius, the Munhall resident and Democrat, said of Fetterman, “So far, [he’s] OK, and I think he’s just trying to please everybody.”
John Thomas, a registered Republican and veteran in Munhall, told The Epoch Times that he thinks Fetterman is “doing a good job” and that he might vote for Fetterman in 2028.
Tomasic, the McKeesport resident registered as Republican, said: “We vote the person, not the party.
“We’re not looking at whether they’re blue or red. We’re looking at somebody who really cares and wants to do something for this area, you know, regardless of their affiliation.”