Defeated Pro-Trump Democratic Mayor is Down in the Dumps
by Alex Seitz-Wald
May 20 2017, 11:28 am ET Last year, the mayor of a seen-better-days steel town in Western Pennsylvania became the poster child of President Donald Trump's appeal to white working-class Democrats. But he'll soon be out of work after a 26-year-old assistant band director at the local high school beat him in a Democratic primary.
Monessen Mayor Louis Mavrakis' outspoken support for Trump turned him into a media sensation. The 79-year-old former union organizer helped decode Trump's appeal in the Rust Belt on Sunday political talk shows and for major newspapers, where he was quoted saying things like: "If ISIS was to come to Monessen, they'd keep on going. They'd say someone already bombed the damn place."
Trump himself made a high-profile visit to Monessen, a town of just 7,500, on Mavrakis' invitation. Trump stood in front of a wall of recycled trash to slam free-trade policies and promised to bring back good-paying coal mining and steel-making jobs.
But Mavrakis' coup in getting Trump to town also helped lead to his downfall.
When a group of residents protested his visit, they were led by Matt Shorraw, a local community activist whose family has been in the town for generations.
"What bothered me the most was Trump's visit got our mayor a lot of press, but he basically used that press to say our city is a dump," Shorraw told NBC News.
Shorraw resolved to run for mayor, even though he had never held public office and was only in his mid-20s.
On Tuesday, he narrowly defeated Mavrakis in the Democratic primary. And with no Republican on the ballot in November, Shorraw is all but guaranteed to be the youngest mayor in the town's history.
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http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/democrats-vs-trump/defeated-pro-trump-democratic-mayor-down-dumps-n762541
