Fitzgerald Elected Allegheny County Executive

Democrat Rich Fitzgerald will be Allegheny County’s next county executive. With nearly three quarters of the vote counted,  Fitzgerald was leading Republican D. Raja by a nearly 2-1 margin.  

Raja, like any Republican in Allegheny County faced an uphill battle where Democrats outnumber the GOP by a roughly 3-1 margin. In an apparent attempt to counter the disparity, Raja outspent Fitzgerald by a 2-to-1 margin from June through late October, according the last major campaign finance reports before Tuesday’s election.  

Fitzgerald’s victory means there will likely be no attempt to repeal the county’s 7-percent poured alcohol drink tax. If elected, Raja had promised to eliminate the drink tax in his first budget. During the campaign, Fitzgerald said the drink tax was a necessary evil used to leverage state matching dollars for mass transit, and a way to prevent a property tax increase.  

Fitzgerald also supports statewide standards for property assessment. He has pledged to refuse to send out the new certified assessment numbers early next year, unless the Legislature adopted statewide standards for valuing properties.