Mar 30, 2022 4 min read

For many incumbents in Washington and Fayette counties, this could well be a very good – and very relaxing – election year.

With the deadline for filing nominating petitions for the May 17 primary having passed on Monday at 5 p.m., state Reps. Tim O’Neal, Josh Kail, Ryan Warner and Jason Ortitay will face no primary or general election opposition this year, and neither will state Sen. Camera Bartolotta or U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler.

All of the incumbents are Republicans, and the fact that Democrats are not contesting the seats demonstrates how much the region has flipped over the last 20 years from being a Democratic bastion to a Republican stronghold.

But state Rep. Natalie Mihalek, in the 40th Legislative District, will face an opponent in the Republican primary, as will state Rep. Matthew Dowling in Fayette County’s 51st District. Dowling will also have a Democratic opponent in the fall. State Rep. Mike Puskaric of the 39th District will again be facing former Elizabeth commissioner and attorney Andrew Kuzma in the Republican primary contest. Incumbent state Rep. Bud Cook, who has represented the 49th Legislative District since 2017, is running unopposed in the GOP primary in the newly reconfigured 50th Legislative District, which takes in much of Greene County. Cook will, however, have a Democratic opponent in the fall.

The candidates submitted petitions at the end of an unusually accelerated period of signature gathering. The delay was caused by wrangling over state House and Senate maps crafted by the five-member Legislative Reapportionment Commission. Republicans who believed the new maps excessively benefited Democrats challenged them, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected their arguments two weeks ago. Candidates could only circulate petitions once the court cases were settled and the final maps were set. Ellen Lyon, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State pointed out that submitting petitions is part of a process, and there are procedures for withdrawing or objecting to them. If a candidate’s petitions are rejected, the decision can be appealed to Commonwealth Court.

Under the new map, this region will be losing one state House seat due to its declining population numbers. The 49th Legislative District, which has long included parts of the Mon Valley, is now in the Lancaster region. State Rep. Pam Snyder, the 50th District incumbent and the last remaining Democrat in the area’s legislative contingent, announced her retirement in February, and Cook, a resident of West Pike Run, is eligible to run in the 50th District. Douglas Mason, a resident of Franklin Township in Greene County, will be his Democratic challenger in the fall.

Dowling is facing a primary challenge from fellow Republican Ryan Porupski, a resident of Smithfield. In October, Dowling sustained serious injuries in a car accident in Lancaster County. He was released from the hospital in January and has since resumed his duties. Porupski is the president of the school board in Fayette County’s Albert Gallatin Area School District and a part-time instructor at the Fayette County Career and Technical Institute in Uniontown. In the fall, Dowling or Porupski will be facing Democrat Richard Ringer, a Uniontown resident.

Mihalek, a Peters Township resident and two-term incumbent, will be facing a challenger in the Republican primary race from Steve Renz, a Peters Township resident who calls himself “a true conservative.” A Democrat did not file to run in the district, which Mihalek won decisively in 2020.

All the candidates will be running in districts that have been redrawn as a result of the 2020 census, with the 50th District being the most significant example. Some of the other notable changes are:

– The 14th Congressional District, which Reschenthaler has represented since 2019, still includes all of Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, but now includes parts of Indiana and Somerset counties, and a smaller slice of Westmoreland County.

– The 46th Senate District that Bartolotta holds now includes all of Washington County; under the prior map, Peters Township was in the 37th Senate District, which mostly includes communities in the southern part of Allegheny County.

– The 46th Legislative District, in which Ortitay is an incumbent, loses some communities in the southern part of Allegheny County, including Bridgeville, which will now be in the 45th District, a seat now held by Anita Kulick, a three-term Democrat.

– The 48th District seat, held by O’Neal since 2018, keeps the City of Washington, and now stretches west to the county’s border with West Virginia, and has also been extended farther east.