Summary
Who Is Judy Trombetta
Judy is the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s 166th State House District, covering Haverford Township and part of Marple. She was born and raised in Berwyn, went through the Tredyffrin/Easttown school district, and got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work at Temple University. She is a sitting Haverford Township Commissioner — elected in 2021, sworn in 2022, elected vice president of the board her first year, and elected president of the board in 2025. By day she serves as Intergovernmental Affairs Manager for the Montgomery County Commissioner’s Office, where her job is to manage relationships across 62 municipalities, the Montgomery County state delegation, and federal partners.
How She Got Into This Work
Judy’s path into government started with social work. While at Temple, she interned at a low-income housing facility in Washington Square West, worked at the Pennsylvania Prison Society on programming for children of incarcerated parents, and eventually landed at Hedwig House, a mental health clubhouse in Ardmore, where she became a psychiatric rehabilitation specialist. The pattern she kept seeing — people who qualified for government services but had no idea those services existed — is what pushed her from direct service into government itself. She wanted to be on the side that decides whether the resources reach the people who need them.
The Pittsburgh Years
Her first job in government was as chief of staff to Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields, who hired her into the role straight out of the Pitt Institute of Politics. When Shields ran for district magistrate, she stayed on as chief of staff to the next councilman in that seat — Corey O’Connor, now mayor of Pittsburgh. While in that office, she helped pass the city’s ban on hydraulic fracturing — a ban still in effect today — and a property tax assessment appeal assistance program for low-income Pittsburgh residents who couldn’t afford a lawyer to fight their county assessments.
Harrisburg and Montgomery County
After Pittsburgh, Judy spent five years with the Pennsylvania Senate, starting as a district director and being promoted to chief of staff. She spent two and a half of those years going to Harrisburg with her state senator on session days, sitting in on conversations with advocates and constituents, and helping move legislation forward — including Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana bill, which took eight years and a Republican co-sponsor to pass. She is currently the Intergovernmental Affairs Manager for the Montgomery County Commissioner’s Office, where she watched the early Trump federal funding freeze throw a county government into chaos at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday and then get reversed by a judge by 4 p.m.
Why She Ran
It wasn’t Trump himself. It was the impact. Watching Medicaid, food assistance, voting rights, reproductive rights, and civil rights come under attack — and watching the federal funding freeze paralyze the supportive services Montgomery County delivers to its residents — convinced her this was not a moment to stand by. She had the experience. She had the relationships. She decided to use both.
Beating a 33-Year Incumbent
Judy unseated Greg Vitali, the longest continuously serving member of the Pennsylvania House, by a 24-point margin in the May 19 Democratic primary. David Brown had run the same lane against Vitali in 2022 and lost by 17. Judy’s read on what was different: she had a written track record as Haverford Township Commissioner, a weekly newsletter that reaches 3,000 households in the township, and years of community presence as a basketball coach, Discover Haverford liaison, and volunteer at the Irish Festival and Heritage Festival. One of her biggest supporters first met her pouring Guinness at the Irish Festival in Marple — and ended up hosting a meet-and-greet and door knocking for her. She also matched Vitali at his own game. Vitali was known for door knocking. Judy door knocked back, almost every night, sometimes with her family, sometimes alone. Over 25 meet-and-greets. People at the polls on election day told her she had knocked their door.
Public Education
Public education is her top priority and the through-line of her career. As a Temple undergrad, she watched kids walk into the Philadelphia elementary school across from her campus without backpacks — a contrast with her own TE School District experience that has stayed with her. In 2009 she did a fellowship through the Education Policy and Leadership Center in Harrisburg and worked on the Pennsylvania school funding campaign. She supports Governor Shapiro’s budget proposal to fully fund and equalize school funding, and would advocate for fair teacher pay, mental health counselors in every school, education specialists, and music and arts programming across the state. Her local frame: Chichester just announced a property tax hike that still leaves a school funding deficit, and Pennsylvania’s school funding system has been unconstitutional since the 2023 Commonwealth Court ruling. The proposed seven-year fix is too slow.
Recreational Marijuana as a Revenue Source
She would back legalizing recreational marijuana — both as a long-overdue criminal justice reform and as a revenue source. When she worked for the state senator who passed medical marijuana, internal appropriations projections put recreational at roughly $1 billion in first-year revenue. Pennsylvania is now behind every neighboring state. She would direct that revenue toward public education and criminal justice reform.
The Budget and Harrisburg Dysfunction
The 2025-2026 budget went months past its deadline. The 2026-2027 budget is due June 30, and she is honest that she doesn’t see it getting done on time. She calls the current level of gridlock unprecedented — “textbook dysfunction” — and her response is rooted in the bipartisan work she watched happen on medical marijuana. That bill took eight years and a Republican co-sponsor to pass, and the state senator she worked for built it by finding common ground across very different constituencies: moms with kids who had seizures, veterans with PTSD, and Republicans who saw revenue potential. Her view: you don’t move a divided legislature by telling the other side to pound sand. You have coffee.
Data Centers
Judy is straightforward that this is a space where she is still learning — and that this is true of most people in government right now. Her current position: strong state-level regulation around utility usage and protecting community health, with local authority retained for the zoning and land-use decisions. She compares the data center wave to hydraulic fracturing in Pittsburgh, where she learned the issue existed only because residents started calling the councilman’s office to ask why landmen were on their porches with leases. New industries arrive faster than government can react to them. The lesson she takes from fracking and the Clean Air Act is that catching up after the fact is the bad outcome. The job now is to get ahead of it.
Joe Walker and the General
She does not know much about Joe Walker — they have worked the polls at two different locations together and he seems like a nice guy and an insurance broker. She has not seen evidence of a base of support, and a Republican has not won this seat in roughly 35 years. But she does not take it for granted. In her 2025 reelection as Haverford Commissioner, she received more Republican votes than her Republican challenger — a small sample, but one she is proud of, because it suggests she can transcend party affiliation in a community that knows her work.
Where She Fits in the Delco Delegation
If she wins in November, Judy joins a delegation that includes Speaker Joanna McClinton, Rep. Jen O’Mara, Sen. Tim Kearney, and the rest of the Delco delegation. She credits the existing delegation’s work — O’Mara on paid family leave, Kearney on e-scooter regulation, the broader fight on the Crozer closure. Her first-year approach is to support the bills already in motion before figuring out what she introduces herself. One thing she would push for is allowing Pennsylvania municipalities to use local speed radar — Pennsylvania is the only state in the country that doesn’t permit it, and she sees daily speeding complaints as a township commissioner with no real tool to address them.
What She’d Do in a Democratic Trifecta
If Democrats win the trifecta in November and she wins her seat, her priorities are public transit funding, raising the minimum wage (Pennsylvania is now more than 15 years behind on this), tackling affordability as the issue where people are hurting most, and public education as the foundation that makes communities thrive. Her bottom line: invest in public education and you are investing in children, public safety, and economic vitality at the same time.
