PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — Despite profound differences on the Israel–Hamas war, the Democrats’ entire national House leadership announced Wednesday it is supporting leftist Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) against a primary challenge. Supporting party incumbents is the norm in both parties in the House, but it doesn’t come without a cost.
It is a cost that may threaten Lee’s fellow Keystone State Democrats.
Lee, an unabashed progressive and member of the “Squad,” has gotten sideways with lots of voters in the 12th Congressional District for several reasons, beginning with not showing up in Squirrel Hill at the Jewish Community Center, where hundreds of her constituents, along with local leaders, came together in support of Israel.
Lee, a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America and former state legislator who beat a 19-year Democratic incumbent for that state House race, narrowly won her U.S. House primary race in 2022 in a crowded field of Democrats.
The heavily Democratic-registered district she won that November includes the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, where 11 Jews were massacred at the Tree of Life synagogue five years ago — the deadliest attack on Jews in our country’s history.
Her absence was followed days later by her post on X amplifying an Al Jazeera English breaking “news” story that falsely claimed Israel hit a hospital in the Gaza Strip. Then, she decided days later to join several progressive House Democrats to support a resolution that does not mention Hamas terrorism in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Several Democratic voters here who asked to remain anonymous said their final straw with her was when she sat behind and in support of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) when Tlaib tearfully (and unsuccessfully) implored her House colleagues not to censure her. Tlaib argued, outrageously, that her use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine would be free,” which unequivocally means the elimination of the Jewish state, was really just “an aspirational call for freedom.”
The members of the Democratic House leadership — Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) — are not the only prominent elected officials who support Lee. When she announced her reelection bid last September, both of Pennsylvania’s senators, John Fetterman and Bob Casey Jr., were named as members of her campaign reelection host committee.
At her reelection announcement event at the teachers union headquarters, Lee said people supporting her are voting for the future, “and we are not voting for the past anymore. We are voting for the country we are building, not the country that has existed in the past … a movement right here in Western Pennsylvania that will change the shape of America.”
Late last month, Lee earned a Democratic primary challenger when Pittsburgh native Bhavini Patel, a local borough councilwoman who spent years as an Allegheny County community outreach manager, jumped in the race and immediately blasted Lee for her X post that Lee has since deleted.
“What we have is somebody who’s amplifying terrorist propaganda, stoking hatred, stoking the worst parts of human nature,” Patel said at a campaign kickoff event. “When we’re dealing with a remarkable rise in antisemitism, we deserve better.”
Local Democrats note Lee has been absent in the district. For one case in point, on Monday, she failed to attend the 25th annual Martin Luther King breakfast at the Bethel AME Church in Pittsburgh’s iconic black Hill District neighborhood. Local elected Democrats — including Mayor Ed Gainey, Allegheny County executive Sara Innamorato, and former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Baldwin, as well as Patel — were in attendance.
Pennsylvania has a large Jewish population in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, most of whom are Democrats and influential within their party. Several interviewed for this story see Lee on the wrong side of Israel and are hoping Fetterman, Casey, and President Joe Biden will, too, as the primary nears this spring.
Antisemitic and hateful graffiti, as well as protest marches, have escalated in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, and all of the events have kept residents in both cities on edge. In Pittsburgh throughout the end of 2023, the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill was peppered with spray-painted antisemitic scrawlings on businesses, homes, and sidewalks; pro-Israeli signs were torn down in front of day schools and homes; posters of hostages were also torn down along the Murray Avenue corridor; and a surveillance video captured a person trying to smash through the window of a Jewish-owned business.
In Philadelphia in December, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters swarmed outside the Israeli-Jewish restaurant Goldie, which is owned by Pittsburgh native Michael Solomonov, chanting, “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” as they reportedly stuck “Free Palestine” and “This is genocide” stickers on the storefront’s exterior.
And just this week in Philadelphia, the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza, a public memorial dedicated to educating visitors about the atrocities of the Holocaust, was vandalized with a large spray-painting of a swastika. Two days later, piles of garbage were dragged and then dumped in front of that same memorial, located just a stone’s throw from Philadelphia City Hall.
And at several Pennsylvania institutions of higher education, pro-Palestinian rallies have left Jewish students feeling vulnerable. The Department of Education is investigating several of those Pennsylvania universities — including Temple, Drexel, and Lafayette — for alleged antisemitic incidents.
Muhlenberg College political science professor Chris Borick said Pennsylvania Democrats find themselves splintered from the progressives such as Lee. Borick said the deep intraparty divisions over Israel that have emerged are raw and could conceivably affect the Democratic Party for a generation. He added that there are unseen “consequences happening that will impact future elections” as the divide grows between those who support Israel, such as Casey and Fetterman, and Lee, who has called for a ceasefire.
Lee isn’t the only Squad member to face a challenge this spring in a Democratic primary: Fellow Squad members Cori Bush (D-MO) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) have earned primary challengers. Meanwhile, Lee will debate Patel, along with late-entrant challenger Laurie MacDonald, next week at Carnegie Mellon University’s McConomy Auditorium.
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Like Casey and Fetterman, Jeffries bucked his pro-Israel personal position for the traditional we-stand-behind-all-incumbents mantra of the party, saying at his announcement in his statement that Lee would oppose “the extreme MAGA Republicans” in Pennsylvania.
Casey, Fetterman, and Biden need at least those so-called “extreme MAGA” Republican voters to win any statewide race in this state, something all three have done in previous elections. The question becomes if their affiliation with Lee’s strident anti-Israel activism will affect their prospects.
