Leftist attorney Matt Dugan won the Democratic primary for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania district attorney Tuesday night, rejecting six-term incumbent Steve Zappala.
With 97.8 percent of precincts reporting, Dugan (pictured above), the county’s head public defender, received over 93,000 votes to Zappala’s 74,000. This doesn’t mean the latter can be counted out just yet; if GOP write-in votes — which are still being tallied — number 500 or more for him, he can run against Dugan in the general election this fall.
“I apologize to my friends and supporters that we didn’t have a stronger showing this evening,” Zappala told the press after conceding the Democratic nomination. “But I’ll tell you what: I think if we stick around until November, we’re gonna kick some a** and take some names.”
Dugan’s roughly $800,000 of campaign funding came almost exclusively from the Justice and Safety PAC which is funded by the progressive billionaire George Soros. Many lenient district attorney hopefuls across America have benefitted from Soros’s largesse in recent years, including Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D), a prosecutor who many policymakers believe is at least partly responsible for his city’s skyrocketing crime.
Dugan offers voters an agenda similar to Krasner’s, embracing “true diversion” of some offenders — those the candidate argues are less threatening — away from the penal system and toward mental-health and drug-treatment services. The nominee said he thinks county residents won’t resist such an approach.
“We did really well in the suburban areas, really well in the mail-ins, which is where we were thinking we might be behind and we did really well,” he told reporters. “So, you know, people favor criminal-justice reform, so I feel confident that our message will carry through in November if it goes that far.”
His isn’t the only far-left candidacy to win an Allegheny County primary on Tuesday night. Former state Representative Sara Innamorato, an avowed socialist, handily got the nomination for county executive. She will face Republican financial executive Joseph Rockey this autumn.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Matt Dugan” by Matt Dugan.
Soros! Again? This is getting old. I don’t believe there is a Soros. We put innocent bystanders from Jan 6 in jail without any due process for over 400 days, but we have to put up with this imaginary figment called Soros? Get real!