The 2024 election was a bitter disappointment for the Democratic Party nationwide. Left-leaning candidates underperformed across the country, and almost every single demographic group in the U.S. shifted rightward to deliver U.S. President Donald Trump his first-ever popular vote victory in three elections.
While the 2024 result was cause for woe among Democratic operatives, locally, there was a silver lining — Allegheny County was one of the few urban counties nationwide that didn’t shift markedly toward Trump compared to the 2020 general election. Over that same period, locals helped elect progressive candidates to positions in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Pa. General Assembly, and city and county offices. Many of the new officeholders are also young, especially for a county that ranks among the oldest in the country.
Local organizers say that has everything to do with a party shift toward grassroots outreach.
“Western Pa. in general is understanding how to meet the moment,” Sam Wasserman, a Pittsburgh Democratic operative, tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “We’re talking about grassroots economic issues left and right.”
As recently as 2020, the Allegheny County Democratic Committee (ACDC) came under heavy criticism for endorsing Heather Kass, a candidate for the Pa. House, in a four-way primary race, angering local progressives — Kass would later come in a distant third to Pa. Rep. Jess Benham. The party snubbed other progressive women candidates at the time who would go on to win their races. Wasserman says this was indicative of ACDC at the time.
“It was in shambles … apathetic, and hemorrhaging money,” he says. “Not very infrequently, the county party’s endorsed slate would lose.”
Lawyer Sam Hens-Greco, now chair of ACDC, says he was a progressive on the outside looking inwhen he first got involved in Pittsburgh politics. He and his wife Kathryn had been involved with Democratic campaigns as far back as U.S. President Jimmy Carter and worked with the LGBTQ community during the AIDS crisis. When Kathryn ran for judge in 2003 and lost, Sam says they both realized it not as a setback, but as a future opportunity to try out a more grassroots campaign style.
“We had 67 house parties in ’05, and on Election Day, I had 325 people at the polls,” he says. Despite not having the Democratic endorsement, Kathryn won. “When you look at the results, it’s like, wow, this really works,” Sam Hens-Greco tells City Paper.
Hens-Greco joined the 14th Ward Democratic Committee and eventually became chair, bringing his grassroots values with him. The party has invested in tracking its own efforts and contacting as many voters as possible. From canvassing to door hangers to direct outreach, he says the club’s grassroots efforts worked, and, heading into the 2020 election cycle, the club began reaching out to other area Democratic groups including ACDC.
“We’ve got 1,300 precincts — if I have two people who are committee members in each precinct to be the voice of the party, you know, we can build a real formidable grassroots network,” he recalls thinking.
Between 2020 and 2022, progressive enthusiasm and dissatisfaction with the status quo resulted in numerous younger candidates winning their races, including Benham and U.S. Reps. Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio. Pittsburgh Democrats also propelled progressive Ed Gainey to office as the city’s first Black mayor in 2021, and elected Pa. Rep. and former Democratic Socialists of America member Sara Innamorato as Allegheny County’s first woman executive in 2023. Both faced Democratic skepticism and Republican opposition on their way to office.
Lauren Williams moved to Pittsburgh in 2022 to work with the Pa. Democratic Party. Williams recalls being among the youngest people in the room during those election cycles — but she also says older committee members and operatives actually expressed a desire for more young people to get involved. Williams says Lee and Deluzio’s victories put the wind at younger Democrats’ backs.
“Through getting those two people elected, it became clear to young people in Allegheny County [that] we actually do matter, and that our voices do hold some weight, and that our congressional members who are representing us know what the internet is,” Williams, now president of Young Democrats of Allegheny County, quips.
The party in 2025 looks far different from the one that saw committee members wearing Trump hats in 2020. Williams, Hens-Greco, and Wasserman all say that, although some local Democratic committees remain more insular or dominated by older operatives, the overall picture in the county is of a much less balkanized and much more proactive party apparatus. Though all three see further room for growth, especially when it comes to reaching Pittsburgh’s large student population, they say willingness to work collaboratively — sometimes a challenge in a highly balkanized region — has changed the ground game for Pittsburgh-area Democrats.
“I think that what is unique about Allegheny is that the older folks who are in those spaces want to make room for younger people, and without that, we wouldn’t be able to do it right,” Williams says.
Hens-Greco says voting by mail has also helped a broader range of people vote and notes the recent success of the cross-endorsed “Slate of Eight” candidates for the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. Under his leadership, ACDC has been distributing lengthier voter guides that include all Democratic candidates, even ones the county party hasn’t endorsed.
“The one thing voters want more than anything is information,” Hens-Greco says.
In 2025, against the backdrop of Trump’s second-term bid to crush all opposition, Allegheny County could offer a playbook to other left-leaning groups reeling from the 2024 election cycle. Hens-Greco says the times when area Democrats could “keep their head[s] down” and reliably be (re-)elected are over. In 2025, he says, turnout will be key to holding onto the majority-Democratic Pa. Supreme Court, which could well be a foil to Trump’s sweeping policy changes at the national level.
“I think it’s clear this is a low-information, low-voter-turnout election. We need to be making touches with voters, explaining to them what is going on with this [Pa. Supreme Court] retention race,” Hens-Greco says. “If you’re in your community, and you’re talking to voters, and you’re encouraging them and inspiring them to come out and vote, you’re in an extremely powerful position during this election.”
Williams says Young Democrats of Allegheny County (YDAC) is working to mobilize Democrat youths to knock on doors and call voters, and ACDC plans a “big day of action” Oct. 11 around the judicial races and other downballot contests. She says young Democrats aren’t looking nationally, but inward to what works locally — and that’s why local electeds can advocate for the region, and against Trump, from a position of strength.
“They’re actually fighting back with grit,” Williams says of local elected officials, citing Lee and Deluzio in particular. “They’re not just taking it lying down. They’re not having little meetings in press conferences saying, ‘do better.’ They’re demanding better.”
Wasserman says he’s heartened by changes at the state party level but encourages area Democrats not to get complacent.
“The biggest thing is, as a party in general, are we allowing in young voices?” Wasserman asks rhetorically. “Are elders in the party gatekeeping or not, and are they willing to build the coalition that we actually need to meet this moment and to fight the authoritarian fascist takeover of this country?”
This article appears in Election Guide Oct. 8-14, 2025.
Correction, October 8, 2025 9:45 pm:
An earlier version of this article conflated the 14th Ward Democratic Committee with the 14th Ward Independent Democratic Club in one instance. The error has been corrected above.
Clarification, October 8, 2025 9:22 pm:
This article has been updated to better contextualize Williams’ comments about elected officials and YDAC vs. ACDC’s role in organizing a day of action.
