Article sucks as it doesn’t clearly state party until second paragraph. Reporter or OP could have put a (D) after his name in the headline.
It’s local news. Everyone that lives there knows who he is.
I would concur if it was national media as they tend to pull that trick. Same as “teens” vs “white teens”. The msm starts with “Republican so and so” but buries or doesn’t even mention (D) if they’re forced to run bad news on one. All their news on repubs is bad news.