Losing Pittsburgh candidate holds baseless “Stop the Steal” protest; fight with counter-protesters ensues

Today, after presidential candidate Joe Biden overtook President Donald Trump in the Pennsylvania vote count, some far-right personalities and candidates made baseless and false claims that mail-in votes being counted are illegal. And one of those right wingers in Pittsburgh is state Rep. candidate Danny DeVito (R-Carnegie). DeVito, who currently is trailing in his election and is almost certain to lose, gathered with about 30 other protesters in front of Pittsburgh’s City-County Building.

Some protesters were holding “Stop the Steal” signs. “We will never accept Joe Biden as a legitimate president," DeVito told the small crowd.

NEW: About 30 Trump supporters here in Pittsburgh, led by local GOP state Rep. candidate Danny DeVito (R-Carnegie), who lost his race, falsely claiming there are hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots cast for Biden.

“We will never accept Joe Biden as a legitimate president” pic.twitter.com/6hs9SS1ro4

— Ryan Deto (@RyanDeto) November 6, 2020

After about 10 minutes, a dozen or so of the protesters left the scene and didn’t return. DeVito then claimed, without evidence, that there was voter fraud in Coraopolis. His claims are not in line with the Republican Party of Allegheny County.

County party chair Sam DeMarco said on Nov. 4 that Allegheny County has “done a tremendous job under incredible circumstances” and added that there have been no security concerns with the ballot count. While Biden has done very well in Allegheny County, so have many Republicans down ballot.

According to the Associated Press, a Pennsylvania appellate court judge has dismissed a request from Republicans to stop the state or counties from counting provisional ballots that were cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were disqualified by a technicality.

About 25 minutes after the gathering was apparently breaking up, a small group of about 10 counter-protesters showed up and started chanting, “No fascist USA.” Then, the remaining group of about a dozen Trump supporters started to shout at the counter-protesters, and the counter-protesters shouted back.
The scene was reminiscent of a fight between high school students in a cafeteria. At this point, there were nearly as many members of the press as there were protesters and counter-protesters.

After several minutes, dozens of Pittsburgh police officers in riot gear showed up and forced themselves in between the two groups of protesters. Eventually, police outnumbered protesters at least three to one.

DeVito left shortly after police arrived on the scene.

After 15 minutes of opposing sides yelling at each other, police in riot gear get in-between and then force out everyone from sidewalk. Counter protesters in street. Pro-trump crowd in portico. DeVito left before this happened. pic.twitter.com/Ig5KEzXTjZ

— Ryan Deto (@RyanDeto) November 6, 2020

Protesters and counter-protesters continued to yell at each other for more than an hour, with protesters claiming Biden is controlled by the Chinese government, and counter-protesters calling Trump a fascist.

The whole event lasted about 90 minutes.