I’m Leanne Krueger-Braneky, a proud progressive Democrat. On August 4th, I was elected to represent the 161st Legislative District in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
First, I want to thank David Nir, Chris Bowers, Michael Langenmayr, Adam Bonin and the Daily Kos netroots community for seeing the promise in our campaign and for rallying to get us over the finish line. The grassroots support from all over the country was incredibly inspiring and it came at a time when our campaign was badly in need of a boost. (More on that later)
Despite its proximity to Democratic stronghold Philadelphia, Delaware County (aka Delco) has been controlled by Republicans for years. Not because their ideas are better, but because they controlled the redistricting process back in 2010. Democrats hold the overall voter registration edge in Delco. We elected President Obama twice and voted for Joe Sestak over now-Senator Pat Toomey.
Nonetheless, Republicans have long dominated control of the County Council (all GOP) and the vast majority of municipalities and school boards. Democrats have fared slightly better at the state level, which is why last fall every winning State House GOP candidate ran away from then-Governor Tom Corbett and preached a platform more or less identical to that of our current governor, Democrat Tom Wolf.
Once they were inaugurated, these same Republicans did an about-face and immediately stepped in line with the Koch-funded extreme GOP House and Senate leadership that currently is holding Pennsylvania hostage in a budget standoff with Governor Wolf. Polls show that the majority of Pennsylvanians still back Governor Wolf’s budget agenda, which means there are a whole lot of ticket-splitting voters who are now feeling some regret.
The special election I won last week was scheduled when incumbent Republican Joe Hackett, who won narrowly last November, suddenly (and mysteriously) announced last March that he was resigning. The Republican Speaker of the Pennsylvania House called the August 4th special election in the hopes that Democrats, who are at a registration disadvantage in the district, would not turn out. In a brazen display of arrogance, the county GOP selected an AFL-CIO leader who’d previously supported Democrats as their nominee in the hopes of peeling off enough union Ds to win. It was their race to lose.
So confident were Republicans that the nominee, Paul Mullen, regularly dodged reporters and ducked all debates. His campaign operative spokesman gave conflicting accounts of his policy positions throughout the campaign.
The fact that this play almost worked is incredible. Last November, Pennsylvanians deposed a governor after one term for the first time since 1968 because he had cut $1 billion from public education. Democrats and educators are almost uniformly united behind Governor Wolf’s budget, which would restore those cuts with help from an extraction tax on natural gas companies. Yet the largest teachers’ union in Pennsylvania, PSEA, joined the trade unions in endorsing the Republican.
Democratic stakeholders who otherwise would enthusiastically support increasing our numbers in the House were hesitant to support me. In late June, we began to cut the budgets for our mail and digital programs and gave up almost all hope that our field program would reach its full potential. The GOP plan to divide our traditional supporters was working.
Enter Daily Kos.
I cannot overstate how overwhelmed we were by the response to Daily Kos’ July 24th endorsement of our campaign along with a plea for contributions to fund our GOTV field operation, our digital advertising programs, and a last round of mail. The first goal was $5,000 to fund one of those things. Within 24 hours, Daily Kos readers surpassed $20,000 in contributions from each of the 50 states and some US territories. After another few days, we had raised more than $30,000 from nearly 3,000 individuals.
That wave of support signaled to others that ours was not a lost cause and that there was a clear contrast between what we stood for and what Paul Mullen’s backers said he stood for (see: #WhereIsPaulMullen). Meanwhile, Democratic officials like Governor Wolf who were with us from the start suddenly had a lot more company.
Not only were we able to fund robust GOTV, field, digital and election protection operations (we knocked 6,655 doors on Election Day alone, 2,800 of those after 5 p.m.), the Daily Kos support leveraged other last-minute investors and we were able to compete with Paul Mullen on TV. The ad we ran was produced for pennies but it let everyone in the Greater Philadelphia media market know that we were not backing down from the Republican majority in Harrisburg.
Add to that an all-star GOTV rally with Governor Wolf and Montgomery County Democratic Commission Chair Josh Shapiro and we went into the August 4th election with all of the momentum.
The Republicans’ spin, of course, is that write-in conservative candidate Lisa Esler siphoned votes from Mullen to create an opening for our campaign. What they decline to mention is their effort to siphon votes from us by running a labor candidate. You would never have known that PSEA was backing Mullen by the volume of retired and current teachers who volunteered for us.
The grassroots support of individuals made all of the difference for our campaign and together we made history. I received over 5,000 votes, which makes me the highest vote recipient in either party in any State House special election that wasn’t concurrent with another election for at least the past 15 years. We were able to take back a seat that had been lost in the 2010 Tea Party wave and I am the first woman elected to represent the 161st. This is a win that should embolden progressives and keep us focused on taking back Pennsylvania’s Legislature in time for 2020 redistricting.
When we unite, we win. When we run on our core principles, we inspire voters to turn out for us, even in the middle of August.
I am so grateful to the Daily Kos community for uniting behind me. After I’m sworn in on August 25th, I will work non-stop to validate your amazing show of support.