HARRISBURG — The race to become Pennsylvania’s next attorney general will be one of the more closely watched contests this fall, as six candidates jockey for the chance to occupy one of the most powerful offices in the state.
Democrat Eugene DePasquale will face Republican Dave Sunday, as well as four third-party contenders: Justin L. Magill of the Constitution Party, Eric Settle of the Forward Party, Green Party candidate Richard L. Weiss, and Libertarian Robert Cowburn.
With a budget of $144 million and a staff of 1,060 prosecutors, attorneys, investigators, and other staff, the Office of Attorney General is, at its core, the law firm that represents Pennsylvania’s vast government and defends its laws in court.
But it also investigates and prosecutes everything from organized crime to political corruption, a mission that over the past several decades has boosted the office’s profile — and by extension, the public profile of the person at the helm of the agency.
Learn more about DePasquale below:
Who is Eugene DePasquale?
Eugene DePasquale, 53, has spent much of his career in elected office.
He attended the College of Wooster, the University of Pittsburgh, and Widener University Commonwealth Law School. In 2006, he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he served three two-year terms representing York County.
In 2012, he ran and won the job of state auditor general, where he maxed out at two four-year terms at the helm of that office.
In 2020, he snagged the Democratic nomination to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry in the 10th Congressional District, but ultimately lost that race.
Though he does not have prosecutorial experience, DePasquale has centered his campaign around his years of working in Harrisburg, a deep bench of policy positions, and a long record of policy fights.
A Pittsburgh native who later made York his adopted home, DePasquale was part of a large freshman class of lawmakers ushered into office on a wave of public outrage after the 2005 pay raise controversy that scarred the legislature’s reputation.
When he ran for auditor general in 2012, he often touted his record in the legislature of minimizing government spending. He frequently boasted that he was the first legislator to post his expenses online and that he had the lowest among lawmakers. He once noted during a debate that he bought his district office furniture at a yard sale.
As auditor general, DePasquale made headlines with several of his office’s reports, including a 2019 performance audit of the state’s voter registration system in which he criticized the administration of fellow Democrat, then-Gov. Tom Wolf, for denying access to key documents necessary for a thorough review.
DePasquale’s office also revealed troubling problems with the state’s child abuse hotline — where nearly 58,000 calls went unanswered over two years — and brought attention to the backlog of untested rape kits.
