‘Solidly against it’

Twenty years ago, Pennsylvania’s 12th state House district, covering much of southern Butler County, wasn’t a slam dunk for either party. Patricia Carone Krebs, who held the seat from 1991 through 1998, served four years as a Democrat and then four as a Republican. The race to succeed her, though, set the stage for two decades of dominance by the man some call the state’s most conservative politician.

In1998, Jim Powers of Middlesex was considering a run for the seat to combat an educational system that seemed, to him, to be “looking to create a passive, compliant, and dare I say it, dumbed down generation that will not object when their freedoms are taken away.” But then he sat down with Mr. Metcalfe, who was a 35-year-old Army veteran and medical equipment technician from Syracuse, N.Y., with a dozen years of residence in the district.

They were “political clones of each other,” said Mr. Powers, who “prayed about it,” and bowed out, backing Mr. Metcalfe. He’s since contributed money and time to Mr. Metcalfe’s campaigns, while fighting for the representative inintraparty battles.

Mr. Metcalfe also shook the Butler County money tree, making connections he would keep tapping for nearly two decades.

“I was the first person he called for a contribution when he first ran for office,” said William E. Adams, chairman of furniture maker Adams Manufacturing. He has remained a top donor. “I don’t think there’s a taxpayer with athree-digit IQ who would not supportDaryl,” he said.

In the 1998 primary, Mr. Metcalfe emphasized his support for state-backed vouchers so more students could attend private schools. He beat the son of a former representative, then bested a Democratby nearly two-to-one.

Mr. Metcalfe showed his backbone during his first month, bucking Republican Gov. Tom Ridge’s personal plea for his support for funding stadiums in Pittsburgh. “I am solidly against it,” Mr. Metcalfe said after the tete-a-tete.

A pattern was set — one which turned Mr. Metcalfe’s early supporters into a corps of die-hards.

Since then, Mr. Metcalfe’s views on hot-button issues have tended to fall to the right of most of the Legislature, putting him ahead of his time as the GOP has become more conservative. He pushed a bill permitting the carry of concealed weapons on school property after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999; proposed a measure requiring voters to present an ID at the polls in 2002; and fought to strengthen the state’s ban on gay marriage before it was struck down by a federal judgein 2014.

“Daryl is the most conservative politician in office anywhere,” said Don Rodgers of Creative Real Estate Development Co., another early backer. “He cannot be bought by anyone, including me, and the fact that he upsets everybody means that he’s doing something right.”

Replacing moderates with allies

Ann Reale was in her 12th year on the board of the Seneca Valley School District when voters booted her from her seat. The reason? Mr. Metcalfe, she said.

It started in 2005 when she cross-filed on the Democratic and Republican tickets for re-election — a common approach in low-level races, and something she had always done — in an effort to remain nonpartisan. But instead of cruising to another term, she lost to Tom Roth, a neighbor of Mr. Metcalfe’s who took the GOP nomination and beat her in the general.

Republicans told her that real party stalwarts never cross-file, she recalled. “All Daryl wanted was me off the board because I would not blindly follow his agenda,” she said recently.

Ms. Reale’s ouster — which was reversed when Mr. Roth could not finish his term and she replaced him — underscores Mr. Metcalfe’s battle for allies in Butler County politics.

Source: Pennsylvania Department of State data

In 2003, Mr. Metcalfe’s daughter, Lisa, then 16, accused Cranberry Supervisor Chuck Caputy, a Republican, of deliberately bumping into her at Ross Park Mall. A resulting harassment charge against Mr. Caputy was thrown out. Four years later, though, Mr. Metcalfe asked David Root, a Democrat, to run against Mr. Caputy. Mr. Root won, allied with Mr. Metcalfe, and served through 2013. He has since become a Republican.

In 2006, four new members (among them Mr. Hadley) won election to the Butler County Republican Committee, only to be told by Mr. Powers, then the committee chairman, that they could not take their seats. The reason: They had publicly supported Democrats and the cross-filing Ms. Reale in the past. A judge ruled that the four could take their seats on the committee.

In 2015, a likely Metcalfe ally — his daughter, Lisa — ran in the Republican primary for a seat on the Butler County commission, but finished fourth in a 10person field.

The intraparty tremors and ideological fault lines contributed to what Butler CountyCommissioner Kevin Boozel, a Democrat, called a “rift that’s been unsolvable” on the most concrete of issues —road funding.

As county and local leaders sought dollars to fix the congested Route 228 over the