Ringler Helps Wrangle Region’s Republican Revival

 

Barbie Lynn Ringler (l) takes a break from cleaning up Pittsburgh to take a selfie with friends. Photo courtesy of Barbie Lynn Ringler.

By T.S. Townes

With the general election of 2025 less than a week away, Allegheny County and city of Pittsburgh campaigns have had a different feel, largely because of volunteers like Republican Barbie Lynn Ringler.

“All of this is about is working together,” Ringler said recently from her Knoxville neighborhood home. Locally, no one has reached across more aisles this summer and early fall than the Altoona native. The daughter of Navy veterans, Ringler grew up going to more schools than grades in her early life. “I was so awkward,” she said. She worked exceptionally hard to reverse that personal trend and now says she’s comfortable talking to anyone.

At 18, Ringler wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, so she gravitated toward what she knew—the military. But when she went through her routine physical, doctors told her she was expecting. “Expecting to go where?” she asked. “You’re expecting,” was the answer. Flabbergasted, Ringler couldn’t join the military. Nine months later, Marissa Michele Matthews was born. Marissa arrived with some physical ailments and spent time in several hospitals as a child, but today she is healthy. Ringer’s son, Evan, “is almost an Irish twin,” she says with a laugh. The two live in Bethel Park with family.

This most remarkable of elections is just the most recent chapter for Ringler.

Citing her upbringing and Marissa’s physical concerns, the always energetic Ringler has focused her interests on issues ranging from the Healthy Americans Coalition to advocating against human trafficking as a founding member of Pittsburgh’s branch of the “Gridlock Girls.”

She became active in the campaigns for experienced military candidates like Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Sean Parnell and state Senator Devlin Robinson.

A photographer by trade, Ringler isn’t afraid to get her fingers dirty. She’s worked in maintenance and painting. Over the past few months, she has been canvassing for practically every Republican candidate in the county and city. It has been an unprecedented time for those candidates.

While Pittsburgh is famously a Democratic “one party town,” Ringler and a strong slew of candidates for Allegheny County and Pittsburgh City Council have made inroads where they haven’t before. One may call that the “Joe Rockey Effect” for the Republican who fared fairly well against Allegheny Executive Sara Innamorato.

And that’s not even counting Mayoral candidate Tony Moreno.

The Allegheny County Republican Committee, led by Chairman Jason Richey and Todd McCollum, Chairman of the City of Pittsburgh Republican Committee, have witnessed a host of candidates, including Maria Battista and Matt Wolford who are running for Judge of the Superior Court and Commonwealth Court respectively. There are eight Allegheny County Council candidates, including the self-styled “Constitutional Republican and Veteran” Patrick Provins, who announced his candidacy for a write-in campaign for Allegheny County Council District 9 in the Mon Valley less than a month before last Spring’s primary election. He received more than 600 of the 903 write in votes, last updated June 5. Ringler calls Provins a “phenomenal candidate who truly cares about the community.”

There are also three city council candidates, including Erin Koper, who spoke at the Republican National Convention and is considered an up-and-comer in the party.

Ringler sits on the Allegheny County Council of Republican Women, which promotes civic engagement and grassroots initiatives. When the region suffered extended power outages during the summer, Ringler went to work in various communities, including nearby Carrick. Ringler worked with the Salvation Army and Democratic state Representative Jessica Benham and others to provide a truck of food for the needy. In a time of need, Ringler said it wasn’t about partisan politics. “You have to appreciate those who do care,” she said.

Ringler continues to knock on doors with candidates and meet with voters who are frustrated with local politics. And with Allegheny being the second most populated county in the Commonwealth, she points out that it also features the largest number of Republicans. She says candidates have largely found receptive and friendly ears.

She also has found common ground with Moreno. There has been a kerfuffle between the local Republican Committees and their highest-profile candidate. The county and city parties have not financially supported and have barely recognized Moreno, and he has been vocal about the chasm between committee and candidate. Meanwhile, Moreno almost exclusively does solo, “man on the street” promotional videos and doesn’t host traditional fundraisers or events. However, he has been visible and vocal enough to earn several, rare, bipartisan television debates with Democratic candidate Corey O’Connor.

Ringler says the relations between Republican leaders and Moreno have improved.

When conservative Charlie Kirk was assassinated during a college event in Utah, Ringler and others quickly arranged a Sunday night vigil at Pittsburgh’s West End Overlook Park that attracted more than 300 in just a few days. “There is an awakening,” she said of political and religious openness even before the fatal shooting on September 10.

As for personal political aspirations, Ringler chuckles, but it’s clear she has given it thought. “I’m not a County Club candidate,” she says. She is quick to discount the “MAGA” label for most conservative, Christian Republicans. She grew up with a “more liberal lifestyle” with her parents going through several marriages and constant moving. She attributes a lot of her moral influence to grandparents—her grandfather was a police officer in suburban Pittsburgh.

With an increased emphasis on her personal mental and physical health, Ringler says she feels “healthier now than as a teen.” It’s apparent with her non-stop activities.

She has been in the trenches with homeless people and has “picked up buckets and buckets of needles” off streets. Indeed, not what everyone thinks when they consider a “in the background” conservative operative.

She thinks the local and statewide parties are growing. Pennsylvania Treasurer and veteran Stacy Garrity is running for Governor and Ringler has already made those inroads.

Ringler says no matter what happens after voting next week, “Either way, it’s all good,” she continues. “We’ve already made history. We just want to be heard.”

T.S. Townes is an independent, non-partisan political observer based in Pittsburgh.