For a few minutes around lunchtime Tuesday, much of the political spectrum met outside an Allegheny Valley polling place. There was disagreement — and neighborly kindness.
Kailyn Wood arrived first and sat down at a picnic table to do some last-minute research on her phone. What did the Home Rule Charter referendum do? She scrolled through news articles for a couple minutes until Jim Dietz walked up with his dog, Stewart.
Wood and Dietz are neighbors in Springdale Borough and greeted each other warmly. Wood eagerly took Stewart’s leash to watch the dog while Dietz went inside to vote. The friendly interaction obscured the fact that the two find themselves on opposite ends of the political debate stretching the nation’s collective identity.
Wood is a 31-year-old software engineer and registered Democrat who backed Gov. Josh Shapiro for re-election. Dietz is a 72-year-old retired steelworker, a registered Republican and showed up to the polls wearing a camo-green shirt with “Let’s Go Brandon” on the front. He backed Republican Stacy Garrity for governor.
After Dietz voted, the pair lingered at the picnic table to talk to each other and to a reporter. It wasn’t long until another man known to both walked by. That was Dave Kostewicz, 72, who said his top issue was opposing abortion.
He said he voted for Garrity (though he had trouble remembering her name), because Shapiro wants to “kill, kill, kill” unborn babies. Wood, who said she is pro-choice, asked, “What if the mother is going to die?”
“You have to let the mother live,” Kostewicz replied. Kostewicz continued on his walk after he and Wood exchanged a casual “Love you” in parting.
All three shared a skepticism of the data center buildout happening across the country, particularly the proposed development in their borough. Paul Whale, a 60-year-old former mechanical engineer, arrived with his dog after Dietz and Kostewicz left and said he typically votes Republican but hadn’t yet made up his mind on the governor’s race because Garrity supported data center development in the past. (She’s since said that was a mistake, and said she backs a pause in development of the AI hubs.)
“I don’t know too much about the Republican candidate other than they want to put up all the data centers,” Whale said, citing a TV ad that included audio of Garrity talking about how Ohio had surpassed Pennsylvania in data center construction.
Dietz said he consistently voted Democratic when he was a member of the United Steelworkers’ union as an employee of Allegheny Ludlum Steel because he was told it would serve the union’s best interests.
“I even voted for Obama both times because that’s what I was supposed to do,” he said.
He said he started voting Republican after retiring. He said he doesn’t outright oppose the Springdale data center project, but said it should be “contained” and have its own power and water supplies.
“There are things on this Earth that were not here when I was a kid,” he said. But he pointed to a cell phone across the table and said, “Those things are the bane of the Earth right now.”
He also criticized Shapiro for taking money from AI companies before pivoting his position on AI development earlier this year. (He’s since signed an executive order to add conditions for state permits.)
Wood said she was disappointed with the gubernatorial candidates because both Shapiro and Garrity have pushed data center development in the past. She ended up voting for Shapiro because his views align with hers in other areas.
She said she and her husband want to have a child but worry about raising one so close to a data facility. She said her background as a software engineer has increased her skepticism of AI technology and data centers.
“It’s a scam, man,” she said. “Everyone [in the industry] has dollar signs in their eyes, but they don’t code, they don’t see it. We’re just paying for tokens.”
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
Stephanie Strasburg is a photojournalist with Public Source who can be reached at stephanie@publicsource.org or on Instagram @stephaniestrasburg.
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