A decisive victory swept progressive Democrat Summer Lee into history, with her victory in Pennsylvania's newly drawn 12th Congressional District making her the first Black woman to represent the state in the U.S. House.
"We fought. We built coalitions. We brought together people who had never worked together on campaigns," Lee said late Tuesday, calling her campaign a "multi-cultural, multi-generational movement."
Mike Doyle, the Republican candidate in the race, conceded the race about 11:30 p.m., noting that "it appears (voters) have elected Summer Lee to be our next representative in Congress."
Lee thanked supporters for being part of her history-making election.
"Our communities waited far, far too long for this," she said. "This victory is for each and every one of us."
Doyle handily won the majority of the vote in the portions of Westmoreland County represented by the 12th District — 67% to Rep. Lee's 32%. Her margin in the Allegheny County piece of the district, however, more than made up for those votes: just under 161,000 against Doyle's 104,755
About a half hour before Doyle's announcement, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey took to the podium at Lee's Downtown election night gathering.
He began with a chant.
"I believe," he started.
"In Summer Lee," the crowd gathered at her watch party responded.
"I believe you changed politics," Gainey told Lee, who, if the results hold up, would be the first Black congresswoman from Pennsylvania. "You didn't let the money influence you, intimidate you or scare you away. What you did was you rose up and said today is a new day."
He introduced Lee to the relatively small crowd of invited guests.
"It looks like we won an election here," she said shortly after 11 p.m.
Previously part of the now-obsolete 18th District, the 12th District includes much of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County's southern municipalities, parts of Pittsburgh's eastern suburbs and some communities in western Westmoreland County. The former 18th District fell along Allegheny County's southern and eastern borders.
Democrats had hoped the race would be a bright spot in what many expected to be a bad night for the party that holds the White House, as midterms often are. Only 43% of U.S. adults said they approved of how President Joe Biden is handling the job, according to an October poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Lee's apparent win comes despite more than $1 million in campaign spending against her by the United Democracy Project, the Super PAC of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It was the second-most spent by the PAC against a U.S. House candidate.
Confusion over which Mike Doyle was on the ballot — the retiring longtime U.S. representative held a press conference last month to explain that his name was on the ballot but he was not — sent Lee's campaign scrambling in the weeks leading up to the election. Volunteers and door-knockers reported confusion from some voters, and the outgoing Doyle's office fielded numerous calls from confused voters.
"When we were up against a wall, every single time when it looked like it was getting bleak, we had friends come from all over," Lee said. "When we got into the name confusion and people started wondering what's going on, we had friends come up. When AIPAC dropped another million in the last week just to send a message and just to try to demoralize us, our movement didn't sit down, we stood up and we fought back."
Republicans sought to paint Lee as an extremist, a radical and a socialist. Doyle's campaign capitalized on that image of Lee, pointing to a weekend rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT.
"Today Summer Lee brought yet another DC socialist to try and save her campaign," Doyle wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. "While she stands with the far left of the DC social establishment, I'll stand with the families who have been hurt by Washington's overspending, the police Summer Lee wants to defund and the workers their policies will put out of work."
Doyle ran on a platform built around his experience in the private sector and work done at a local level. A Plum councilman for 17 years, he touted himself as a business and community leader rather than a so-called career politician.
Lee, too, championed her unconventional path to office, pointing to her 2018 run for the state House that ended in her primary election defeat of a 20-year incumbent, Paul Costa.
