In the three weeks since Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter left the Republican Party, Democrats have mostly succeeded in clearing a path for their prized defector.

But Specter still has one announced challenger in the Democratic primary — Bill Kortz, a little-known state representative from western Pennsylvania who announced his candidacy a week before Specter’s party switch and who says he is staying in the race.

Kortz, who is serving his second two-year term in the state House, said his candidacy is being driven by economic issues — job losses, home foreclosures and bank failures that he says have decimated working families.

“I come from the working class,” said Kortz, who spent three decades as a manager for U.S. Steel Corp. “And the working class is what’s getting hammered right now, and it didn’t have to be. And that’s why I’m running — that’s the No. 1 reason.”

The state had a 7.8 percent unemployment rate in March, the most recent figure available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Kortz blamed “political enablers” in Washington for helping create the problems in the economy.

In particular, he places much blame for the current economic woes on a 1999 law (PL 106-102), overwhelmingly enacted by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, that repealed Depression-era laws restricting cross-ownership among banks, brokerages and insurers.

Coupled with big spending on the war in Iraq, Kortz said, “Look at what has happened to this country. ... We are just out of control.”

Kortz also said he is sticking with his campaign because he doesn’t want to see Specter unopposed in the Democratic primary next May. Unlike state Rep. Josh Shapiro and former Philadelphia deputy mayor Joe Torsella, who dropped out of the Democratic primary to defer to Specter, Kortz is staying in the race because “the people deserve a choice in this election.”

“It’s not fair to the people of Pennsylvania that the president and the governor are anointing this guy now that he’s switched,” Kortz said. “He got off his elephant and climbed onto a donkey and said he’s a Democrat. They’re anointing him as the chosen one. Well, that’s the decision of the people, and they deserve a choice.”

Kortz, who represents a district south of Pittsburgh, also is making a geographic pitch, saying his state should have a senator from western Pennsylvania. Specter is from Philadelphia, and Democrat Bob Casey , the state’s other senator, is from Scranton.

“I think it would be good for all Pennsylvanians, and I think it would bring good geographic balance, if we had a senator from the east and the west,” he said.

Though many liberal activists are pushing for a primary challenge to Specter, it won’t be easy for Kortz to overtake him. Kortz represents one of 151 state House districts and has low name recognition. Endorsements of Specter by President Obama and Democratic Gov. Edward G. Rendell mean that Kortz could have a difficult time collecting campaign cash from the usual Democratic moneygivers.