Posted on 12/01/2019 12:00:11 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A self-described progressive activist, who helped found an advocacy group in Pittsburgh that supports autistic people, is mounting a challenge against longtime incumbent state Rep. Harry Readshaw.
Jessica Benham, 28, of the South Side Slopes, is bidding for the Democratic nomination in the 36th legislative district, shaping her candidacy after the campaigns of a number of progressive women who have toppled longtime Democratic incumbents in the past two years.
Her campaign is framing the race that way, too, and in a recent email, used the secondary headline to proclaim “Progressive Benham to challenge conservative incumbent Harry Readshaw.”
“In some ways, yes, this is about someone who is more progressive running against someone who’s more conservative,” Ms. Benham told the Post-Gazette this week. “But at the end of the day, the way that I view this race is that I am running as someone who will be present and responsible and will fight on behalf of the community versus someone who has been less present and less responsive.”
Mr. Readshaw, 78, has represented the district — which extends from Mount Washington and Carrick within the city limits to Brentwood and Baldwin Borough — since 1996, and hasn’t faced a primary opponent in half a decade.
In 2014, he faced a similar opponent: freshman lawmaker Erin Molchany, described then as progressive, young and supportive of abortion rights and LGBTQ rights. He won the battle of incumbents, which was forced after the redrawing of district boundaries, by about 21%.
Ms. Benham volunteered for Summer Lee and Sara Innamorato, and ran the canvasses in south Pittsburgh for Bethany Hallam. All three of those women beat incumbents with decades of legislative experience by building grassroots movements.
Hesitant about electoral politics in general, Ms. Benham noticed a trend.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
PING!
The demonrats thought they could control the monster they created.
It will eat them before it eats Republicans
Thanks Tolerance Sucks Rocks.
Heck, I was born on the South Side, grew up in Carrick, lived for a while in Baldwin, and now Mt. Washington.
But I never heard of this woman.
Readshaw is a big-time funeral home owner in the ‘burgh.
If it’s Pittsburgh, the elected reps are Dems. A law of nature!
PA State Rep. Readshaw had an 18% ACU Conservative rating in 2017 and 22% in 2018 (down from a lifetime rating of 34%, which means his yearly % used to be much higher). So this is the case of Stalinist Demonrat challenging Marxist Dem incumbent.
Pittsburgh was Republican until the early years of the Depression (around 1933), and sadly never went back to the sane side. A lot of the coal country counties that similarly went to the Demonrats have moved back to the GOP again.
Readshaw votes pro-2A & pro-life.
He’s earned the wrath of the left.
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/9215/harry-readshaw-iii?categoryId=2&type=V,S,R,E,F,P,E,E
Earning the wrath of the left is identical to earning the wrath of Satan.
“So this is the case of Stalinist Demonrat challenging Marxist Dem...”
Like WW2: Germany vs. Russia, who’s the more “progressive”?
Stalinist vs Trotskyite.
Yup...
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