Innamorato, Rockey accuse each other of extreme politics – TribLIVE

Sara Innamorato, the Democratic nominee for Allegheny County executive, is attacking her Republican opponent Joe Rockey, claiming he isn’t being upfront about his conservative support.

Rockey, who has billed himself as a moderate and garnered some labor support, said Innamorato is lying and Innamorato is hiding her far left-wing history.

Innamorato, a former state representative from Lawrenceville, held a news conference Wednesday in Downtown Pittsburgh to celebrate the Democrats’ special election victory this week in a state House race. She said Rockey will fight against Democratic priorities such as housing, health care, public transportation and abortion access.

“These are things that matter most to people, and Democrats are the ones that are talking about how to make these things a reality throughout the county and throughout the commonwealth,” Innamorato, 37, said.

She said Rockey hasn’t been upfront about his donations to conservative politicians, some of them aligned with former President Donald Trump.

Rockey donated $1,000 to Trump ally and former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta of Hazleton in 2018, according to campaign filings. He also donated $5,200 to former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey since 2016. Toomey had a very conservative voting record while in Congress, but was also known for voting to convict Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial.

Mostly, Rockey, a former executive at PNC Bank, has donated to the PNC political action group, which has given mostly to Republicans over the years, but also gives to Democrats. In January 2018, Rockey also donated to Democrat Conor Lamb during his special election campaign.

Morgan Overton, vice chair of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, said Rockey is getting help from Scott Pressler, an right-wing activist who helped organize rallies around the false claim that Trump won the 2020 election.

Pressler tweeted Monday that he is organizing a day of action this weekend to help support Rockey.

“Republican Joe Rockey is hiding his MAGA associations, plain and simple,” Overton said.

The Rockey campaign said it had never even heard of Pressler before being contacted, and it denied any association with him.

Rockey spokesman Dennis Roddy said Innamorato’s claims show her campaign is desperate and that she has “hit the panic button.”

His campaign has picked up support from the LiUNA trades union and local police unions, and was endorsed Wednesday by the Pittsburgh-based Local 154 of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers. On Thursday, Rockey will announce his affiliation with the Forward Party, a new political group co-chaired by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, according to a release.

“She’s lying about Joe Rockey because she needs to cover up her own far-left history, starting with the Democratic Socialists of America and extending to groups that want to defund the police and eliminate blue-collar jobs,” Roddy said. “Innamorato is trying to distract people from her own history of extreme politics and her failed legislative record.”

In 2018, Innamorato was a member of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and received the left-wing group’s endorsement in a successful run for state House. In 2019, Innamorato told the progressive publication In These Times that she was still paying dues, but not attending meetings.

When asked about her ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, Innamorato didn’t say whether she was a member and said that her campaign is supported by a large coalition of groups that shows she is not tied to just one ideology.

“We have to look at the facts and who is surrounding the different campaigns. My campaign is endorsed by organized labor, from the public sector employers to the building trades,” Innamorato said. “We have business leaders on our side. And we also have Black-led and LGBTQ-led and Jewish organizations.”