Grassroots progressive seeking lieutenant governor post
She doesn’t have a bevy of senators standing up on her behalf, like incumbent Lt. Gov. Mike Stack did Wednesday. And she hasn’t garnered the national media attention of the Pittsburgh area’s other hopeful for the office, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.
But Aryanna Berringer was the first candidate to enter the lieutenant governor’s race early last summer, after reports surfaced of Mr. Stack’s allegedly shoddy treatment of staff and a state police security detail. And she’s proud to call herself an underdog.
“You don’t usually challenge a sitting Democrat as a Democrat,” said the 35-year-old Murrysville resident. “But the reports of how [Mr. Stack] treated his staff is not representative of me or who I think the Democratic Party is. ... This is an opportunity to show the purpose of the office and to set the bar higher.”
Lieutenant governor is a lowprofile office, although the person holding it presides over the state Senate and can vote to break ties there. The lieutenant governor also chairs the state’s Board of Pardons, a post Mrs. Berringer said she hoped to use to streamline the pardon process.
“People with records have a hard time finding a job, so how can they afford the process to get a pardon?” said Mrs. Berringer, who added that her father once was jailed for marijuana possession.
Mrs. Berringer, who works in information technology for Giant Eagle, is running as a grassroots progressive with a hardscrabble upbringing.
One of 10 children in a struggling working-class household, she enlisted in the Army and was assigned to a support unit during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Combined with her upbringing, she said her military service helped inform a “unique perspective” that can “round out what’s missing from the ticket right now” as Gov. Tom Wolf seeks re-election.
Mrs. Berringer is biracial, with an African-American father and a
white mother. “We’ve never elected a person of color to executiveoffice, and we have no women in the Congressional delegation,”she noted.
High-ranking officials from working-class backgrounds also are in short supply, she said: “I feel like this is an opportunity to ensure that we — women of color, people from poverty — have a seat at the table.”
This race is not Mrs. Berringer’s first political foray: She was a surrogate for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and mounted a 2012 challenge against incumbent Congressman Joe Pitts in a heavily Republican district outside of Philadelphia. She lost by 15 percentage points, but, “I learned how politics work. … And I learned you have to raise money.”
Candidates in 2018 races are not obliged to report campaign finances until next year. Mrs. Berringer said she has racked up more than $60,000 worth of support, though “a good portion of that” is in-kind contributions from her husband and campaign manager, veteran political consultant Daren Berringer.
The field of Democratic hopefuls also includes Chester County Commissioner Kathi Cozzone, Montgomery County state Rep. Madeline Dean and Lancaster County Commissioner Craig Lehman.
But while her local competitor, Mr. Fetterman, has garnered high-profile endorsements from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and former Gov. Ed Rendell, Mrs. Berringer’s scrappiness has earned support as well.
Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner lauds her“political independence” and “well-organized grassroots campaign.”
“I’d be happy to support either John Fetterman or Aryanna,” said Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker. But he said he was endorsing Mrs. Berringer in part because “she came to me early and made her intentions clear. She said, ‘I want to know what your concerns are.’ I appreciated that and I respect her hustle. I don’t bet against people like that.”