Voters in Pennsylvania\u2019s 45th state House District will choose between two Robinson residents this November in a race to replace retiring state Rep. Anita Astorino Kulik.<\/p>\n
Democrat Brittany Bloam, a political newcomer, and Republican James Julius are vying for the seat Kulik, D-Kennedy, has held since 2017.<\/p>\n
The 45th District covers part of Allegheny County, including Collier, Kennedy, Neville, Robinson and Stowe townships and the boroughs of Bridgeville, Carnegie, Coraopolis, McKees Rocks and Pennsbury Village.<\/p>\n
Although Democrats have represented the 45th District for decades, the district\u2019s voter registration and election results tend to skew more conservative than much of the rest of the county.<\/p>\n
With Democrats holding just a one-seat majority in the state House, the 45th District could offer Republicans one of their strongest chances to gain a seat.<\/p>\n
While Bloam\u2019s and Julius\u2019 platforms target similar, overlapping challenges facing Western Pennsylvania \u2014 affordability, building strong schools, good jobs and improved infrastructure \u2014 their campaigns split on how the government should address them.<\/p>\n
Bloam, a zoning and land use lawyer at Meyer, Unkovic & Scott LLP in Downtown Pittsburgh, built her campaign platform emphasizing public investment, fully funding schools, unions and worker protections, affordable childcare and reproductive rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been an attorney for 15 years, and so I\u2019ve spent my entire career working with people that I don\u2019t necessarily agree with to get things done in a respectful, intellectual manner. And so I decided to enter the race to bring those skills to the state House,\u201d Bloam said.<\/p>\n
Bloam defeated Allegheny County Councilman Pat Catena, D-Carnegie, in one of the most-watched primaries in Allegheny County this spring.<\/p>\n
Kulik, a longtime pro-life Democrat, endorsed Bloam\u2019s campaign during the Democratic primary despite her pro-choice campaign.<\/p>\n
Bloam, a self-proclaimed \u201csurvivor\u201d of complicated pregnancies, said she wants to protect access to reproductive healthcare by allowing medical providers the ability to make decisions quickly without government interference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really became clear to me that that\u2019s not a decision or a room where we want politicians or lawyers, right? Those types of decisions should be left to patients and their doctors,\u201d Bloam said.<\/p>\n
Bloam also wants to cap childcare costs so families are not overwhelmed and invest money into programs so providers can pay childcare workers a sustainable wage with benefits.<\/p>\n
Julius, an artificial intelligence company founder, ran unopposed in the Republican primary. He ran for state representative before, losing to Kulik by 16 percentage points in 2024, according to Allegheny County polling results.<\/p>\n
Julius leads VISIMO, which is a software, data and AI company that launched in 2015 and has since has secured contracts with the government. In October 2025, the company signed a $3 million, 15-month prototype contract with the Army Artificial Intelligence Integration Center, according to Julius\u2019 LinkedIn page.<\/p>\n
Julius said he wants to grow small businesses, reduce regulatory barriers, and promote skilled trades and apprenticeships, fiscal accountability and stronger support for emergency responders.<\/p>\n
Julius wants Pennsylvania to be more attractive to businesses and encourage economic development, in part by simplifying the permitting process.<\/p>\n
He supports an \u201call-of-the-above\u201d approach to energy, including using natural-gas resources, arguing that expanding energy production could reduce costs and stimulate economic activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vast majority of our electricity is generated from natural gas, and I think that taking advantage of all of our abundant resources that we have available to us \u2026 would help to drive down energy costs,\u201d Julius said, \u201cand you know Pennsylvanians pay really, really high energy costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also identified abortion as a major issue. Julius, who is opposed to abortion, said the district has historically elected Democrats who also oppose abortion.<\/p>\n
Featured Local Businesses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voters in Pennsylvania\u2019s 45th state House District will choose between two Robinson residents this November in a race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-303684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}