On Friday, I was in Harrisburg preparing to submit my petitions to become the Democratic nominee for the Pennsylvania Senate’s 16th District. At the same time, news of an underhanded plot broke in the Washington Post about the DCCC’s attempt to push a fellow progressive into the primary race against me. They swooped into the area and tried to convince Greg Edwards, the most outspoken progressive, and only candidate of color, to drop out of the PA 7th Congressional race. In an attempt to induce him to meekly surrender to the establishment, they offered him support in the state senate race against me. I am Mark Pinsley, a business owner and progressive activist running against the incumbent PA Senate GOP Appropriations chair from Lehigh County.
The DCCC has no ties or loyalty to the people of the Lehigh Valley. If they had, they would have known that Greg and I had supported each other’s campaigns as a unified movement to change politics. The DCCC also called Susan Ellis-Wild’s campaign, the only woman in the race who is second in fundraising only to Greg, non-viable without any explanation. They could care less about the children in the Allentown school district, one of the most economically disadvantaged school districts in the nation. They’ll be long gone when their plan resulted in losses for the Democrats in the Lehigh Valley up and down the ticket. Their consultants would be wealthier, and they would move on to losing their next race.
The Lehigh Valley has long been the bell-weather of national politics. Lehigh County narrowly voted for Hillary Clinton while neighboring Northampton County elected Trump. In fact, Northampton is one of only 206 ‘Pivot Counties’, places that voted for Obama in ’08 and ’12 and then swung for Trump in 2016. We are the swing area of one of the most important swing states. But the people of the Lehigh Valley are not moderate, the 2016 primary was a 50-50 split between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
The chaos the DCCC tried to create here would have destroyed our chances at progressives taking both the Congressional Seat and a State Senate seat. Greg and I share the same progressive platforms. We would have been forced to waste our grassroots dollars on a primary and have nothing left to take on a well-funded GOP incumbent. This interference by the DCCC would have led to us to losing a D+7 State Senate seat in a wave year to a Republican who has voted to make abortion illegal, punish our communities for protecting DACA kids, and tried to bring back predatory payday lenders to Pennsylvania. The DCCC’s plan would have suppressed Democratic votes and had painful costs for the struggling people who make Lehigh County their home.
The DCCC has been trying to get progressive candidates out of their congressional races without caring about the costs to the average people depending on them to deliver victories. My campaign and many others that the DCCC is attempting to sabotage are delivering devastating blows to the Republican Party that controls Washington D.C. and the overwhelming majority of State Legislatures across the country. This strategy is winning as evidenced by the many recent elections won by progressives.
But if you are encouraged by all the special election wins nationwide, don’t get too excited just yet. The 2018 election cycle is here and all signs point to the Democrats being their own worst enemy. The Democratic party should have learned some lessons after their devastating loss in 2016, but like their GOP colleagues, they seem eager to double down on their failures.
The 2016 election was painful, but it was a symptom of a party that had become increasingly out of touch and tone deaf to its base. Yet in the honored tradition of failing upward in the Democratic party, the people and powerbrokers who failed us in the past found a new home at the DCCC. The DCCC uses the Democratic party label to fundraise and is supposed to use that money to get Democratic candidates elected to Congress. Instead, it funnels much of that money to wealthy consultants who have little connection with the people on the ground. This year they are interfering in Democratic primaries to pick their preferred winners, and it’s no coincidence that their picks have consistently been those with deep pockets who represent no threat to the entrenched establishment and their own power.
Nowhere is that battle uglier than the one in the Lehigh Valley’s 7th PA Congressional District. In the midst of a Federal trial that ended in the Mayor of Allentown being convicted on 47 of 54 counts of corruption, the DCCC made its preferences known. And it wasn’t to support a progressive leading in fundraising as well as organic grassroots support. I know that there is a strong progressive base here after speaking with thousands of the voters at the doors. No matter what your take is on the voters’ choices in 2016, there is one thing they all have common, they want government to start working for them and their neighbors. It’s shameful and sad that the demand that government work for the people is now too progressive for the Democratic establishment. They need to start listening to their voters instead of talking at them via their wealthy consultants.
Whether you call them DINOs or “Republican-lite”, the days of these types of Democrats winning races is over. It ended when they gave us Donald Trump as President. This is not a fight within the local Democrats between Bernie and Hillary supporters who are unified here. It’s an attempt by an outside organization to clear the field and give the advantage to a “Democrat” who has been a vocal booster for Trump and is against sanctuary cities. His win would knock the energy out of the Democratic wave in this area. It’s time to be bold or go home. I’m running because I believe we need legislators who will fight for the people, not the powerful, and that fight that extends to the corrupt and self-interested regardless of party. The DCCC is on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of this fight. They need to get on board or get out of the way.
Both Greg and I recognize that the system is rigged against us, the candidates representing the people. We’re fighting a system that keeps the poor impoverished, makes the sick bankrupt and keeps the well-connected in power. The people of the Lehigh Valley can’t afford any more of what the corporate Democrats are selling. Pennsylvania and the country are at a crossroads, and we need to elect fearless progressives and New Deal Democrats who will not take no for answer when we are told we can’t have better schools, universal healthcare and stronger unions. We need to get money out of politics and we need to sweep the clean the Democratic party controlled by powerbrokers who want to control the outcome of elections before they even happen. That’s why progressive candidates like me need the support of progressives across the country. We’re fighting to build a movement but we can’t do it without YOU. To support my campaign please visit www.votemarkpinsley.com
This is the fight for the soul of our party and one we cannot afford to lose.
Mark Pinsley
Democratic Candidate
PA State Senate 16th District