'Trump House' creator Leslie Baum Rossi seeks nod to run for open Pa. House seat

Former President Donald Trump might have left the Oval Office, but his influence could color the special election to fill the vacancy in Pennsylvania’s 59th legislative district this spring.

Leslie Baum Rossi, the Unity woman who created the Trump House — the red, white and blue shrine to the former president along Route 982 in Youngstown — says she is seeking the Republican Party’s nod to run for the opening created by the death of state Rep. Mike Reese.

He was reelected in November to a seventh term with no opposition. A rising 42-year-old Republican star from Mt. Pleasant, he died unexpectedly Jan. 2 of an apparent brain aneurysm.

Westmoreland Democratic Committee Chairwoman Tara Yokopenic and Republican Committee Chairman Bill Bretz said multiple candidates have expressed interest in the special election, held as part of the May 18 primary, to select Reese’s successor. Rossi, however, is the first to publicly announce her intention to seek the nod in the district that spans 42 precincts in eastern Westmoreland County and 10 in western Somerset County.

Local GOP committee members from the Westmoreland and Somerset portions of the district are expected to gather next month to select a candidate for the special election. Republicans make up about 55% of registered voters in the district, while Democrats hold 34%.

Rossi, a high-energy, 50-year-old mother of eight, works in her family’s development businesses with her husband, Mike. She got involved in politics as a Trump supporter in 2016. Last year, she served as a GOP delegate for Trump.

“The platform Trump ran on and the ideas he proposed were what many of us were thinking,” Rossi said. “He opened the minds of once-quiet voters who were listening to what he was saying he would do for the country, and they were ready for a drastic change to make their lives better.”

During the 2016 presidential primary, she painted an old frame house on a country road in an eye-catching red, white and blue flag motif and staked a 12-foot metal likeness of Trump in the yard.

The site, where Rossi registered voters and handed out free Trump shirts and hats, became a rallying point for supporters near and far who flocked to the house.

It was shuttered for Trump’s first three years in office, until Rossi reopened it for his reelection campaign. Over the past year, thousands of supporters visited the house, which has snared international attention. Her work there ultimately earned Rossi a personal invitation to the White House celebration, where Trump accepted the GOP nomination in August.

She has yet to accept his defeat and echoes the claims of fraud some believe fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I feel, and will always feel, that he won and by a lot in our state. When we went to bed, he was winning by such a wide margin that I didn’t have a slightest concern, and then I woke up in the morning like everyone else to see that had flipped in every swing state after they stopped counting,” Rossi said.

The change came as election workers continued counting an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots cast in the Nov. 3 election, with those ballots overwhelmingly supporting now-President Joe Biden. No evidence has surfaced to support claims of fraud voiced by Republicans.

Although she said she was saddened by Reese’s death, Rossi said it is important for Republicans to move forward, fight for “election integrity” and promote Trump’s America First policies.

“We must stop big tech suppression of free speech. We must make our party strong and have candidates that will serve their community. We need term limits and leaders that follow the Constitution,” she said.

Meanwhile, that giant likeness of the former president is staying put at the Trump House.

“Trump is the best president we’ve ever had in my lifetime,” Rossi said.