Former Delco DA Kat Copeland announces run for attorney general

Republican Katayoun “Kat” Copeland announced her candidacy for Pennsylvania attorney general Monday on the steps of the Delaware County Courthouse.

Copeland, 56, of Radnor, began her three-decade-long prosecutorial career in the same courthouse.

“It’s what I’ve been doing every day for 30 years,” she said in an interview. “It’s meeting with incredible people whether they are victims of crime, victims of rape, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers of homicide victims, law enforcement officers who have dedicated lives to keeping our community safe. They are what propel me forward and motivate me to want to do this.”

Copeland is the second Republican to jump into the 2024 race for attorney general, a prominent position that is seen as a springboard to the governor’s office. She will face York County District Attorney Dave Sunday in the Republican primary, and State Rep. Craig Williams also plans to run. Four Democrats — State Rep. Jared Solomon of Philadelphia, former Bucks County Solicitor Joe Khan, former Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, and former Philadelphia top public defender Keir Bradford-Grey — have also entered the race. Democrat Jack Stollsteimer, the current district attorney in Delaware County who defeated Copeland in 2019, is also expected to run.

The race is crowded, in part, because no incumbent is running. Attorney General Michelle Henry, a Democrat who was appointed by Gov. Josh Shapiro when he became governor and stepped down from the post, is not seeking a full term.

Copeland began as an assistant district attorney in the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office in 1992 and held a variety of roles leading different units. She prides herself on establishing the county’s first drug-treatment court and veterans’-treatment court for nonviolent offenders as a tool for reducing recidivism.

In 2011, Copeland began working as an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where she prosecuted high-profile drug cases. She became chief of the criminal division in 2020 and most recently served in the national security and cyber crimes unit.

She also had a stint as Delaware County district attorney in 2018, when she was appointed to replace former District Attorney John J. Whelan when he became a judge. She lost a 2019 bid to remain in the position to Stollsteimer as a blue wave gave Democrats control of the county’s government.

Stollsteimer won a second term as district attorney this month and is expected to run for attorney general, setting the stage for a potential rematch.

Copeland was born in Upper Darby and attended the prestigious Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr College, and Temple University’s Beasley School of Law.

Copeland, whose mother is from Iran, lived there for several years as a child. Copeland said she “saw firsthand what it was like to be free and then overnight for all of those freedoms to be taken away” during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Her late father, an employee of Westinghouse Corp., was the first American put on trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court on espionage charges.

“That period in my life shaped my appreciation for the rights and the freedoms that we hold dear in our country,” she said.

Copeland plans to use her lengthy experience as a prosecutor to appeal to voters, and she seemed unfazed by the Republican Attorneys General Association’s decision to endorse Sunday in the race.

“I’m not concerned about that,” she said. “I have shown time and again that I have the ability to raise money. I have by far the most experience. I have the temperament. I have prosecuted significant state crimes and federal crimes, and I have shown that I can gain and garner the support of local businesses, leaders, and community members who will support my candidacy.”