With labor groups on his side and new district lines working against him, freshman Democratic Rep. Mark Critz scored an upset Tuesday night by narrowly defeating congressional colleague Jason Altmire in western Pennsylvania.
Reapportionment forced the two conservative Democrats into a member vs. member primary for the state’s 12th Congressional District. With few policy differences separating the two men, the race boiled down to whether the clout of organized labor would outweigh geography.
Three-term lawmaker Altmire held the latter advantage and was considered the early favorite to win. The Keystone State is losing one congressional seat this cycle, and Republicans reconfigured the district to include two-thirds of Altmire’s old territory and a third of Critz’s.
But the matchup in this district that stretches from Pittsburgh’s suburbs to the working-class Johnstown area energized organized labor — which helped Altmire defeat a Republican incumbent six years ago but now feels betrayed by his vote against the president’s health care law.
“The problem with Altmire was, he promised us he was voting for it . . . and at the last minute shifted and voted the other way,” said Tim Waters, political director for the United Steelworkers. It’s not about the health care bill, added Waters, noting that Critz has said he would have opposed the bill as well. “It’s the fact that [Altmire] lied to us, and he cannot be trusted.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s results, Waters said the election was about sending a message. Altmire is in Congress “because of us,” he said. “We put him there in 2006 when he ran against [Republican Rep.] Melissa Hart. We’re going to try to fix the mistake.”
In November, Critz will face businessman Keith Rothfus, who lost to Altmire by two points in the last election cycle. While Democratic operatives in the state think they can keep this seat, Republicans see opportunity in this newly drawn district.
“While Altmire and Critz waged a brutally expensive and damaging primary, each spending well over a half million dollars to negatively define the other, Rothfus had no primary opponent, allowing him to stockpile cash and coalesce Republican support,” read a memo Tuesday night from National Republican Congressional Committee.
As for the Altmire-Critz contest, the steelworkers union had 190 people making phone calls on the latter’s behalf Monday, encouraging members to get to the polls in what was expected to be a low-turnout race. Over the weekend, members handed out literature and knocked on doors. “They’re trying to carry him across the finish line,” Waters said as voters were heading to the polls. “This was the toughest map we’ve ever seen; you can almost never beat a map like this.”
The union and dozens of other labor groups lined up behind Critz, who won a special election two years ago to replace his former boss, the late Rep. John Murtha. Murtha represented blue-collar Johnstown for 3 ½ decades and developed solid relationships with the unions. He was known on Capitol Hill as a pork-barrel spender who brought several projects to the district. An airport and neuroscience center there, for example, are named after him.
Critz’s ties to Murtha also helped him score the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton, who seems to be having success in picking sides in congressional primaries this cycle. (The former president campaigned for Critz two years ago as well.) Critz ran a television ad touting the endorsement that featured a picture of the two sitting together. “If you’re a Democrat in Southwest Pennsylvania . . . can you get anybody better than Bill Clinton?” said G. Terry Madonna, an expert on Pennsylvania politics and director of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, noting the former president’s popularity in the region.
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