Democrats confident in state’s 38th Senatorial District

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Democrats across the state aren’t sweating the primary contest Tuesday in the Pittsburgh area’s 38th Senatorial District.

That’s because no matter which candidate prevails — Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers staff attorney Lindsey Williams or public policy consultant Stephanie Walsh — she’ll face the winner of a Republican primary plagued by infighting in a district that went even more heavily for Hillary Clinton than it did for Barack Obama.

“Frankly, in this one, we’ve got two great candidates,” said David Marshall, executive director of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the chamber. “I think either one of them could win in a general election.”

But first, Democratic voters in part of Pittsburgh and some of its suburbs to the north will have to choose between the party-backed Ms. Williams, a union advocate who pledges to fight for working-class families, or the budget-savvy Ms. Walsh, who asserts that her experience in budget analysis will help alleviate Pennsylvania’s yearly woes.

Although their policy differences are few, the pair of firsttime candidates differ in their visions and resumes. Ms. Williams is a 34-year-old staff political director with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers; Ms. Walsh is a 47-year-old consultant for the West Chester-based public policy firm Public Works LLC.

Ms. Williams, a West View resident, said protecting workers is in her blood. Before joining the teachers federation in 2014, she had served stints with a Downtown workers’ compensation firm, the United Steelworkers and the National Whistleblower Center, where she was fired the night before the 2012 election for trying to unionize the small workforce. Instead of accepting a severance package with a required gag order, she pursued a wrongful termination charge and settled.

“My rights were violated. I had the privilege of having a family that helped support me while I was fighting my case,