PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a Swissvale Democrat, has been in Congress less than four months, but already she has an opponent in next year’s congressional elections.
KDKA-TV political editor Jon Delano has learned that Jim Hayes, a Shadyside Republican, will announce his candidacy later this week in the 12th Congressional District that includes the city of Pittsburgh, the Mon Valley, part of the South Hills and western Westmoreland County.
Hayes, a businessman with a doctorate from Case Western Reserve and degrees from Princeton and Georgetown, calls Lee a radical out of step with this region.
“We really need to get away from the extremism we are seeing in Washington and Congress. And we’ve elected one of the most extreme radicals that has gone to Congress,” says Hayes. “Summer Lee ran as a declared Democratic socialist. She, in my view, doesn’t stand for the values of western Pennsylvania.”
Hayes is also the father of James Hayes, a victim of gun violence last December in New Kensington in a killing that is still under investigation.
KDKA-TV reached out to Lee, whose office declined to comment, saying, “The congresswoman is busy delivering for the people of her district.”