MT. LEBANON, Penn. — Conor Lamb, the 33 year-old former U.S. attorney and Marine veteran from this suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood, is now the official Democratic nominee to compete for the seat held by disgraced former Rep. Tim Murphy.

Murphy, an Upper St. Clair Republican who resigned in the aftermath of the sordid details of his affair were publicly revealed.

Lamb earned the nomination in two ballots during a lively party convention held in Washington, Penn., part of the sprawling district that includes suburban Pittsburgh, and larger swaths of rural Washington, Westmoreland and Greene counties.

Lamb said in an interview with the Washington Examiner after his win that his work on the cases in the U.S. Attorneys on the opioid epidemic were part of what inspired him to run.

“We need to do a better job in tackling the heroin addiction in this region, I don’t know if people understand how bad it is,” he said.

Lamb also points to growing jobs and securing meaningful infrastructure projects to keep the roads and bridges of the hilly terrain of the region up to date as key issues he will run on.

“But it is the heroin addiction that is really personal to me,” he said.

In Allegheny County alone there were 613 fatal overdoes last year, a 44 percent increase over 2015.

Read the full piece HERE.