Last week, Broad + Liberty’s Seth Higgins interviewed Jason Richey, who had recently been elected chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Party. This is a transcript of their discussion.

Broad + Liberty: Hello Jason, thank you for joining me. This past Saturday, February 22nd, you were elected as the Chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Committee after Sam DeMarco stepped down from that position to serve in Senator McCormick’s office. What made you seek this position?

Jason Richey: Well, Seth, as you know, I ran for governor a couple of years ago, and one of the reasons that I ran for governor was because in western Pennsylvania, we’ve had steep declines in population. And that is particularly acute in Allegheny County. The population has been on the decrease since the 1970s.

Just in the last five years, we’ve lost 50,000 jobs in Allegheny County. This is in large part due to the Democrats’ liberal policies. And we now even have more left-wing Democrats that have taken power in Pittsburgh.

I believe that to turn around the place that I love, which is western Pennsylvania and Allegheny County, that we need to have a strong Republican Party that promotes common sense, conservative economic principles that can really unleash the potential of our area. So my job is to take the party to the next level. 

B+L: Can you briefly explain the process for how one runs for and is elected to this position?

JR: Well, this was a unique circumstance in that Sam DeMarco took a position with Dave McCormick, so he stepped down. There was a special election that was held. I had to get 50 signatures on a ballot petition from members of the Allegheny County Republican Committee. After I got enough signatures, I got on the ballot. Members of the Allegheny County Republican Committee were then able to vote in this election.

I had a landslide victory. I think I had some 300, maybe 380 votes. My two opponents, who withdrew about four days before the election, had about 10 and 12 votes.

The story of this election is that the committee people of Allegheny County are sick of the divisiveness that’s been internal to that county party. I’m someone new. I’m an outsider.

I’ve never held a committee position, never held elected office. So, they understand that I’m coming in to bring all factions of the Republicans together and to win. And so that’s what we intend to do.

B+L: Now that you’ve been elected, being Chairman comes with certain responsibilities and authorities. The ability to fill vacant positions within the Allegheny County Republican Committee is now going to be part of your responsibilities, is that correct? 

JR: Yeah, it’ll be part of that process. Local committees for any county party are the lifeblood, and it is the lifeblood of the Allegheny County Republican Party. We’re only as strong as our local committees and the leaders of those local committees.

One of the things that I’ve run on is I want to provide more resources to help our local committee chairs. And I want, among other things, those local committee chairs to fill all their committee slots, because those committee people are your people in your community that promote conservative, Republican principles. We need to fill all those slots.

And then we need our local folks, once those slots are filled, to work harder than ever. I don’t know how much has been put into this before, but we need to focus on changing voter registration. I need all my local committees to be doing that so we can help turn Pennsylvania red.

It must be a daily focus of every committee person in the county. But that hasn’t been our culture, as I understand it from the past, but it will become part of the culture, because studies show that if you’re a member of a party, you’re more likely to vote for that party because you’re on that team. So, everything starts with voter registration.

Then the second thing that the committee must do once it’s filled out is find those good candidates that are willing to run. Once you do that, we have to then support those candidates if we want them to win.

B+L: Prior to seeking the chairmanship, your only other foray into elected politics was your run for the Republican nomination for governor in 2022. However, you dropped out before the primary and endorsed Bill McSwain, who was ultimately defeated by Doug Mastriano. What did that experience teach you about politics in Pennsylvania? What did you learn about the Republican party in the Commonwealth?

JR: I very much enjoyed the process and you really shouldn’t run for a candidacy like that if you don’t enjoy it. It is hard work, harder than I ever thought, trying to get to all 67 counties. It taught me a lot of things.

One lesson, which I guess is the biggest thing you learn is that politics is about money. As a candidate, you’ve got to have a focus on raising money early and often, especially if you’re running for statewide office. Also, you absolutely have to be on the air in the five big television markets. If you’re not, you really don’t have a chance. 

I also learned that the state is very diverse. In Pennsylvania, the different areas and the different regions have different cultures. You have to learn that and understand that. 

Another lesson that is important for any candidate, but particularly for someone running statewide, is you’ve got to be able to build a grassroots network. And I thought our campaign did a great job of that. That’s one of the things we exceeded at. If I hadn’t withdrawn, I think we would have had a really good, formidable ground game.

B+L: The Republican Party in Pennsylvania has had some recent but mixed successes electorally in the last few years. However, the Republican Party continues to struggle in Allegheny County since Democrats dominate Pittsburgh. How can the Republican Party improve its chances in Allegheny County and Pittsburgh?

JR: My priorities for all of Allegheny County also apply to the city of Pittsburgh. Once we improve voter registration, that will attract more candidates, that attracts more money, and that’s going to make a big difference in the city of Pittsburgh. 

The city of Pittsburgh hasn’t had a Republican mayor or Republican-controlled city council in almost 100 years. That is unfathomable. And I think you will see that it is going to change. We may even win a city council or district or two.

We are going to fight, fight, fight, and we’re going to unify, and we’re going to make a big difference. But it’s not going to be overnight. It’s about working on our voter turnout.

It’s going to be about doing things like outreach to Hispanic communities and outreach to different groups that we haven’t necessarily focused on. We will be doing that.

B+L: Thinking more granularly, Pittsburgh elected Summer Lee, a member of the far-left squad, to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022. The Republican Party has been unable to mount a significant challenge to her since. In 2023, Allegheny County nearly elected Republican Joe Rockey as County Executive, but he ultimately lost by a few points to rising progressive star Sara Innamorato. And despite it being a swing district, the Republican Party has been unable to capture the 17th Congressional District, which includes northwest Allegheny County and Butler County. Despite being a competitive seat, it is currently held by Chris Deluzio, who is a member of the left-wing Congressional Progressive Caucus. Why is it that the GOP keeps losing these elections to individuals that come from the left-wing of the Democratic Party? And how can the GOP mount better challenges?

JR: Number one, we don’t have the proper party infrastructure in key places like exactly where Summer Lee is. Or if you take the Joe Rockey race, he’s a hundred times more qualified than Sarah Innamorato, who has no business running a county with a billion-dollar budget. Her entire economic plan was to give government workers that voted for a raise and then raised everybody’s property taxes 40 percent in an area that’s already hemorrhaging population and jobs.

Absolutely idiotic. 

But that’s who Allegheny County elected because, in part, we have to do a better job of fighting for every block in every area. That is a big reason we need to focus on voter registration.

I think that most people in Allegheny County, if they actually sat down and thought about it, are Republicans. The Republican Party is now the party of the middle class. And the Democratic Party is the party of the elite, the academic, and the woke.

Most people in Allegheny County don’t have anything to do with any of that. The problem is that a lot of people in the area are Democrats because their father was a Democrat, their grandfather was Democrat, or they have some union job.

But the thing is that it is the Republicans that are fighting for the middle class. If you take the example of U.S. Steel, it’s the Republicans that are fighting for these union jobs. It’s the Republicans that are trying to avoid these 40 percent property tax increases on common middle-class families. 

But we have to get that message out. And once we do, we are going to turn this around. I’m confident of it. 

B+L: Related to this topic, I think Representative Deluzio is an interesting case. Theoretically, he should not have held onto that seat as long as he has. That seat should flip back and forth. We saw some vulnerable Democrats lose their house elections in the eastern part of the state in 2024, but Representative Deluzio held on in western Pennsylvania. Do you think there’s a specific strategy that you should take in Allegheny and Butler County to challenge him? 

JR: Well, that’s a great question. First of all, we have to find a great candidate.

I think Rob Mercuri did a great job. Rob was a great candidate. But the 17th district is all of Beaver County and some of Allegheny County. And it was Allegheny County that let Rob down. 

So, some of the same things we’ve talked about on building the party’s infrastructure will make a big difference. If I can go back to your specific question about our other house race, which is Summer Lee, that has a different set of problems.

Because I think the 17th district is about D+2. So, it was pretty easy to get the House caucus in D.C. interested in that race. They did put in some money into that race.

Summer Lee’s seat in the 12th district, though, is one that requires us to find a great candidate. But we also must do a good job of educating folks that her seat is winnable. Voters in the district see that it is D+6 or 7 and that is enough to scare off people.

It is unfortunate because people just look at the Democrat advantage in voter registration, which is why voter registration is so important and why I’ve been harping on it.

Most of the people in the 12th district are blue-collar, middle-class folks that have a Republican lean, whether they know it or not. The other thing is that some of her comments in the past have been seen as anti-Semitic. And there’s a huge Jewish population in this District.

So, I think her seat is more vulnerable than people think. And if you look at the results from last time, what’s interesting is those two congressional districts, even though 17 got all the money and all the support, they finished with about the same delta between the two. 

I just came from Washington D.C. and met House Speaker Johnson with a group. I feel good about the direction the country’s headed in. And if we can get these Trump tax cuts passed quickly, I’m hopeful that the midterm can be a little different than it usually is, that we can even maybe gain a couple of seats. And hopefully it’s one of my seats in Allegheny County.

B+L: The PA House of Representatives is currently tied at 101 Democrats, 101 Republicans, and one vacancy. That one vacancy, the 35th district, is in Allegheny County. That district has long been dominated by Democrats. What is your strategy to make that special election, which is scheduled for March 25th, as competitive as possible.

JR: If we win this special election for the house seat in district 35, it will give us full control of the legislature. 

I urge everyone to look up Chuck Davis. He is the Republican candidate in this race. He is a great candidate. Chuck is on the White Oak borough council. He’s been there for 20 years and is also now the head of the borough council. He has also been a volunteer firefighter for 30 years and the fire chief for 20. I am glad we were able to find Chuck. We’re very happy with our candidate.

We are bringing resources from throughout the commonwealth into this race with the intention of winning this thing. It’s going to be low voter turnout, which is very good for us.

To give people a little perspective, when we had an off-year election one year ago, Republicans ran a former Democrat named Stephen Zappala for District Attorney. We also ran Joe Rockey for county executive. If those two gentlemen were running for this house seat at that time, Zappala would have won this seat by nine points as a Republican. Joe Rockey would have only lost it by 500 votes. 

So, this is more than winnable. The amazing thing is that all we need to take control of the Pennsylvania legislature is five to 7,000 votes from the Mon Valley. That is more than achievable. I ask that people from all around the commonwealth get involved. 

Speaking of this race, we have two issues that are important to the people of the Mon Valley.

Number one, within the last week, Democrats have raised property taxes in Allegheny County by 40 percent. And this is after giving all the government workers a raise, which was not paired with any effort to improve government efficiency, to make any cuts, or to consolidate government functions to grow the economy, for God’s sake. It was, we just need to raise your taxes.

People are mad, which I think increases the odds of Chuck Davis winning House seat 35. Secondly, the U.S. Steel is in House seat 35. And as many readers may have followed, Nippon Steel from Japan has offered to buy U.S. Steel and put $1.5 billion to improve the plants.

This would be more efficient, more environmentally friendly. Nippon Steel has guaranteed every union worker ten years of employment, as well as to give each worker a $5,000 bonus right off the bat. In response, President Biden and the Democrats have declared Japan, our ally, a national security threat as a means to kill the deal.

Republicans like state Senator Kim Ward have been fighting hard to save this plant, to approve the deal. Democrats like Sara Innamorato and Governor Josh Shapiro have stayed silent and have failed to protect these important union jobs in Allegheny County. So, if you live in House seat 35, if you live in McKeesport or Clairton or Duquesne, Republicans are out there fighting to keep your property taxes down and to save your union jobs and all those other jobs that depend on U.S. Steel.

And you can send a clear message to Harrisburg and the world that we’re sick of it and we’re voting Chuck Davis.

B+L: Related to this topic, any path for the Republicans reclaiming the PA House of Representatives runs through Allegheny County just as the ability of Republicans to retain the PA Senate depends on the County. What do Republicans need to do in Allegheny County to reclaim the PA House and hold the PA Senate in 2026?

JR: There’s no question that the Republicans in Allegheny County have not held up their end of the bargain. We haven’t done well. 

By the time those elections that you’re talking about come around, we should have already improved all those things that we’ve talked about improving in this interview; such as building the party’s infrastructure, improving our ground game, and changing voter registration. 

After we’ve done this, the next crucial thing will be to field great candidates. We need candidates that are willing to hustle and understand the importance of putting in the work, such as knocking on doors. Our candidates need to work very, very hard. As the Chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Party, the buck stops with me to make sure that we are in fact putting out good candidates.

Also, we really haven’t talked about this, but we got to end that sort of loser mentality that we can’t win certain districts. We have got to start putting resources behind our candidates.

Again, we are the party of the middle class. And most of these voters in Allegheny County are good blue collar, middle class working families who don’t like their taxes getting raised. So, I’m very confident that we will do better. 

B+L: President Trump famously returned to the White House this year by increasing his vote share among minorities and Gen Z. What’s your plan to hold and expand the Republican’s vote share with these groups in the County?

JR: It’s two different things. So, one, I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but one thing we do intend to do is to work with the Libre Initiative to really focus in on some of the Hispanic communities that are in Pittsburgh. I think that group has been untapped and could really expand our voter base, because those folks tend to be conservative. 

Another thing that I’m working on a series of chairman’s orders that are going to totally restructure the Republican party in Allegheny County and it’s going to make significant differences. Part of that effort is to build several committees that are going to have specific tasks. One of the committees is CR, College Republicans.

And we have a number of colleges within Allegheny County. And it’s critical that we support those College Republicans. We will have a committee specifically to ensure that every college within Allegheny County has a College Republican program and that is because those kids, Seth, they want to get out there. They want to make a difference in the world. And they understand the importance of conservative principles. So, we need to make sure that we can mobilize them in races that are tight, get them door knocking and get them out in the community. So that’s some structure that we don’t have whatsoever. But it will be created. We will mobilize College Republicans.

The other initiative that I want to start with is that my local committees begin a scholarship program in our high schools, whether it be $500 or $1,000 or whatever our local committee can afford, just to offer a Republican Party scholarship. To apply for the scholarship high school students would have to write Republican ideals like equality, self- responsibility, and individualism, and how these ideals fit into their lives. I think that we need to get some words of conservatism in schools.

B+L: For the last question, I want to think beyond Allegheny County. Politics in Pennsylvania is famously split along the “T,” which refers to the decades-long pattern of Democrats dominating in the southwest and southeast, which is home to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, respectively. Meanwhile, Republicans dominate in the rural central and northern regions of the state. What is the winning combination for Republicans in Pennsylvania that allows them to hold onto the rural “T” while growing the Republican vote share in urban Pittsburgh and Philadelphia?

JR: I think that if we’re talking about winning statewide elections, which is what I think your question is really focused on, I would argue, and I often did when I was running for governor, is that if you look back at the Republican governors that we’ve had since the 1960s, what do they all have in common? They’re all from Western Pennsylvania.

That’s because of what I was talking about earlier and why I think we can be competitive in Allegheny County: most of the Democrats have this conservative bent to them. And the Democrats now and the liberals have gone way too far left. They’ve gone past these core Democrats that still exist. So, what I would say to those that want to win statewide is help us in Allegheny County. Invest in us. Bring in resources and people. Because I think that Allegheny County is capable of moving in a direction that is more red. Right now, it’s this big blue dot. And if you combine that blue dot with Philadelphia, the T gets overwhelmed.

If we can take that big blue dot and start to make it a lighter blue, or maybe start to be a little purple, which is what I view my job as, I think that you will see us being able to win statewide often. The political landscape for Pennsylvania I envision is I want us to move from this battleground state to something that’s safely red. And I think that battle begins and likely ends in Allegheny County. And I’m up for it. I’m ready for it. And I’m taking on the challenge. I’m excited about it.