Eugene DePasquale to chart new course for Pennsylvania Democrats

New Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale promises to take a stronger stance in opposing President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

Democrats across Pennsylvania are looking at Eugene DePasquale, who served as auditor general from 2012 to 2020, to inject life into a beleaguered statewide party when President Donald Trump’s economy is starting to unravel nine months into his second term. 

DePasquale was unanimously elected by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s state committee on Saturday to replace State Sen. Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) after he resigned to focus on his congressional campaign for outgoing US Rep. Dwight Evans’ (D-Philadelphia) seat.  

DePasquale will serve the remainder of Street’s term, which ends when the party reorganizes leadership next summer. 

“ What we have to do in Pennsylvania is we have to get back to listening to voters, and then working on actually delivering for those voters,” DePasquale told The Keystone on Saturday. 

DePasquale, who has always been open about his personal life, talked about his father serving time in jail for selling drugs and his family not being able to afford healthcare coverage for his brother who suffered from muscular dystrophy. 

“ That was before the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was a struggle. We never had health insurance because insurance companies could deny you care,” DePasquale said during his speech. 

“These are all experiences that I have lived, and as your chair, I will work with candidates up and down the ballot, the elected leaders and the candidates to make sure that those protections exist, and we stand up to the monstrosity in Washington DC and we fight that back and we get this country going again.”

DePasquale is taking the reins of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party at a time when its voters have lost faith in the party nationally. Favorability and approval ratings are at their lowest in decades.    

 He added, “we can do a better job in Pennsylvania listening to voters that are struggling under Trump’s economy, where we’re losing jobs, losing manufacturing jobs. Prices are high, and people want to know that we’re hearing them and that we’re going to deliver for them.”

While speaking to the state committee members, DePasquale called for Democrats to reengage with voters or demographic groups who may have strayed from the party in recent elections. 

“ We’ve got to reach out to the groups and the voters that have voted for us in the past, but recently have begun to doubt whether we are fighting for them. We have to stand up for them as well,” DePasquale said to a roaring applause. “We’ve got to listen, we’ve got to learn and we’ve got to offer real ideas on how to win them back.” 

Going into Saturday’s state committee meeting, DePasquale had the support of the state’s two highest ranking Democrats, Gov. Josh Shapiro and US Sen. John Fetterman. 

Fetterman pledged $100,000 to the state party ahead of the meeting. Fundraising is going to be one of the top challenges for DePasquale because the party only has $62,000 sitting in its federal account.

“Eugene is a longtime public servant who has a proven track record of showing up and fighting for our communities — and I know that is the experience and the fight we needed in our next Chairman,” Shapiro said in a statement. “I’m proud to have supported Eugene for this critically important role because I know he is ready to build a better, stronger Pennsylvania Democratic Party that can meet this moment and win all across this Commonwealth.” 

Since Trump’s reelection last November, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party has largely been absent pushing back against the president. Its social media feeds only share a handful of posts a week any given week and often go days at a time without sharing content. 

Christopher Kowerdovich, who chairs the PA Democrats’ Veterans Caucus, is hopeful that DePasquale will bring the party’s social media messaging up to date. 

“[DePasquale]  wants to really help us with voter registration, which is really an important thing, bringing us into a lot of areas in mass media, social media. These are different areas where I think we can have some areas for growth in the party,” Kowerdovich said in an interview. 

DePasquale referenced his heavy workload as auditor general when asked if he will have more of a presence opposing Trump and the Republican Party. 

“If you thought the Republicans were sick of my media attention when I was auditor General, you haven’t seen anything yet,” he said.