DelRosso weighs options for her future after gubernatorial race

Republican state Rep. Carrie Lewis DelRosso wasn’t going to run against veteran Democratic state Rep. Tony DeLuca.

Part of that, she says, was a matter of respect between one Italian American and another after redistricting took her home in Oakmont out of her 33rd House District and put it in DeLuca’s 32nd District.

“I was not going to run against a guy people truly liked,” she said. “People loved him. I had a ton of respect for him. I used to joke with him on the (House) floor, ‘I’m not going to run against you.’”

Instead, DelRosso ran for lieutenant governor, emerging from a field of nine candidates in the primary to join the ticket with state Sen. Doug Mastriano at the top.

They lost to Democrats Josh Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, and state Rep. Austin Davis, with Shapiro- Davis getting 56% of the vote to their 42%, based on unofficial results with 99% of precincts reporting.

The 32nd House District DelRosso didn’t want to challenge DeLuca for will be up for a special election after DeLuca died about a month before the election he overwhelmingly won anyway. DeLuca, whose name could not be removed from the ballot that had no Republican candidate, got 83% of the vote over Green Party candidate Queonia Livingston.

Asked if she’ll seek her party’s nomination for the special election, DelRosso said she’s considering all of her options as she spends the holidays with her three children, ages 11, 12 and 14.

“We’re going to think about the next steps,” she said.

She also reached out to Mandy Steele, a Democrat who won election in the new 33rd House District over Republican Ted Tomson of Fawn.

“Ultimately,” she said, “it’s a constituency that needs to be able to transition, not the representative.”

Both parties will be able to hold nominating conventions to select candidates for a special election in the vacant 32nd House District, which will be set shortly after legislators are sworn in in January.

Sam DeMarco, chairman of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County, said DelRosso would be considered if she’s interested.

DelRosso said she was not part of Mastriano’s decision to concede the governor’s race to Shapiro on Nov. 13.

“It was on his terms when he was ready to concede,” she said. Noting Mastriano’s military service and that the week ended with Veterans Day, DelRosso said “he just needed some time.”

Candidates for lieutenant governor run separately from governor candidates in each party’s primary. But the winners become a team for the general election.

DelRosso was not Mastriano’s first choice for a running mate. He endorsed Teddy Daniels, a fellow Army veteran. Daniels finished third.

Despite not being his choice, DelRosso said she got along “just fine” with Mastriano.

“My job was to be the lieutenant governor candidate and represent the ticket,” she said. “I developed a very good relationship with him and his wife. They are good people. We had a very short period of time to develop a relationship.”

A proposed amendment to the state’s constitution would allow governor candidates to select their own running mate, similar to how presidential candidates choose their vice president.

While it has found support in the state Legislature, it has to be passed without changes in two consecutive sessions before going to voters for approval. It has one vote and needs one more.

State Sen. David Argall, R-Schuylkill County, has been working on the amendment for several years.

“It’s received strong bipartisan support. I’m hopeful we can get this done in the next few years,” he said.

Asked how he’ll sell the amendment to voters, Argall said, “It’s important that the two top leaders of the executive branch work together as a team.”

Argall said there have been times in state history when governors and their lieutenants didn’t get along, sometimes not even speaking to each other.

“The idea is, if they work together during the campaign, there’s a good idea they can continue to work together once they’re elected,” Argall said. “We have until the next gubernatorial election. We have a four-year window to fix this problem.”

DelRosso would not comment on whether she would have preferred running with someone else.

“I was happy to be on the ticket,” she said. “I ran for the state of Pennsylvania.”

Mastriano did not respond to a request for comment sent to his campaign.

In his concession statement, Mastriano thanked DelRosso “for her boundless energy, cheerfulness and support.

“I simply could not have asked for a better running-mate and I wish her well in what, no doubt, will be a bright future,” his statement said.

A native of Scranton, DelRosso moved to the Pittsburgh area in 1993. She runs a public relations firm under her name.

DelRosso’s political ascent to candidate for lieutenant governor began with her election to Oakmont Council in 2017. She then unseated incumbent 33rd House District Rep. Frank Dermody by 938 votes in 2020, when Dermody held the Democrats’ top post in the state House, minority leader.

“That marked her immediately as a rising star and someone to take seriously,” said Rick Stafford, a professor of public policy in the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University. A former CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Stafford served in Republican Gov. Dick Thornburg’s administration and on his campaign.

Stafford said Democrats are counting on winning DeLuca’s district.

“It would be a tough race, but she really should look at it closely,” he said. “It really deserves a lot of analysis before she steps out in front of it. It’s not enough that she won against a prominent Democrat (Dermody) the last time she ran.”

Now that she’s been part of a statewide campaign, Stafford said DelRosso should consider running for the state Senate. Other options would be auditor general, currently Timothy DeFoor, or treasurer, currently Stacy Garrity.

“I would suspect she’s built up enough supporters that those two state offices could be in her future,” he said. “Right now, they’re held by Republicans. One of them would have to step down for some reason, or she’d have to go head-to-head, which would be hard.”

Running with Mastriano, considered by some as a far-right extremist, hurts DelRosso to some extent but doesn’t take her out of the running, Stafford said.

Stafford said DelRosso’s legislative record shows her to be more moderate and bipartisan than Mastriano. The areas they represent are so different that each could not win election in the other’s, he said.

“I think she played the cards she was dealt. I’m not sure when she entered the race that she counted at all on Mastriano being the lead of the ticket,” he said. “I don’t think her future is destroyed by the head of the ticket.”

DelRosso called the campaign one of the best learning experiences of her life. While she and Mastriano did some rallies together, they crisscrossed the state independently, with DelRosso focusing on meet-and-greets and sit-downs.

“When you’re in government, you have to work with everyone,” she said. “I work with everybody. You have to drop the letter (‘R’ or ‘D’) to get things done.”

DelRosso’s quest now is to stay visible in a meaningful way consistent with the profile she had when she won her state House seat, Stafford said.

Stafford said DelRosso has a future in politics, if she wants it.

“Many lieutenant governor candidates have survived to reemerge in some way, shape or form,” he said. “I think she’s probably one of those.”