Martell Covington, Aerion Abney poised to replace Ed Gainey, Jake Wheatley in state legislature
Voters in two special election races Tuesday chose who would replace new Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and his chief of staff, Jake Wheatley, in the state legislature.
Preliminary election results showed Aerion Abney and Martell Covington, both Democrats, with strong leads in the 19th and 24th legislative districts, respectively.
Abney is a social worker and community activist. He will finish out Wheatley’s term in the 19th Legislative District.
No Republican appeared on the ballot.
Abney had tallied around 2,608 votes as of about 10 p.m. Tuesday, with over 93% of precincts reporting. About 290 votes went to write-in candidates, according to preliminary election results.
Abney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Martell Covington, an aide to state Sen. Jay Costa, had earned the Democratic nomination to replace Gainey in the 24th Legislative District.
Todd Elliott Koger appeared on the ballot as the Republican nominee in the heavily Democratic district.
Covington held a decisive lead over Koger Tuesday, with just over 5,000 votes compared to Koger’s 308 votes with about 98% of precincts reporting as of around 10 p.m.
Covington said he was “excited and relieved” by his decisive lead.
“It’s a great feeling,” he said. “We’ve worked hard. We put in a lot of work and we’re excited.”
He expressed gratitude to the poll workers who manned the special election and the voters who cast their ballots for him. Though Covington said he was pleased with the way the special election was going, he said he’ll soon be pivoting to focus on the upcoming May primary.
The winners of Tuesday’s election will finish out the terms that run through the end of the year. They will need to run again in the upcoming May primary — when districts will look slightly different because of redistricting — to stay in office for a full term.
“We like the rhythm that we had today and we want to keep up the momentum that we started,” Covington said.
Julia Felton is a TribLive reporter covering Pittsburgh City Hall and other news in and around Pittsburgh. A La Roche University graduate, she joined the Trib in 2020. She can be reached at jfelton@triblive.com.
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