WARMINSTER — Democrats in Pennsylvania settled primary fights Tuesday to shape their congressional slate for the fall election, in which they hope — with Gov. Josh Shapiro's help — to capture the state’s four swing districts and ultimately a U.S. House majority.
Janelle Stelson, Bob Harvie, and Bob Brooks won the party’s nomination in three swing districts where Democrats had a contested primary for the right to take on the Republican seat-holders in November.
All were endorsed by Shapiro, the Democratic governor who is putting his clout on the line in trying to help Democrats flip key Republican-held U.S. House seats in Pennsylvania and deliver Democratic control of the state legislature to advance his own agenda.
Shapiro and Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity will face each other in November after winning their uncontested primaries.
The governor urged the crowd at his primary election rally Tuesday night to help the party’s candidates win control of the Legislature for the first time in more than three decades. He said he'll advance a stronger agenda with Democratic control in Harrisburg.
“Give me a Democratic majority in the Senate, and we will fully fund mass transit, we will build more housing, and we will codify abortion rights into state law,” Shapiro said.
For Shapiro, the election year is more than an opportunity to win a second term: It’s a chance to show his battleground-state political strength should he decide to run for president in 2028.
The U.S. House campaigns will put Pennsylvania on the front lines of Democratic efforts to retake control of Congress and block the last two years of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Contested primaries in swing seats
Shapiro and national Democrats promoted their chosen candidates over progressive rivals, the latest example of a fissure that has divided the party as it grasps for a path back to power in Washington.
Three of the four swing districts had contested Democratic primaries, in addition to a wide-open contest in Philadelphia that will almost surely anoint the next seatholder. Those three swing districts are held by Republican U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie and Scott Perry.
Shapiro and the House Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, teamed up to endorse the same candidate in each of the three contested primaries.
Washington U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the DCCC, said the party wanted “top tier” candidates who were the strongest to take on Republican incumbents.
Two of those — Stelson and Harvie — faced opponents on the left, while Brooks was in a four-way primary contest.
Stelson, a former local television anchor and personality, beat Justin Douglas, a progressive minister and a Dauphin County commissioner.
In Fitzpatrick’s district in suburban Philadelphia, Harvie, a Bucks County commissioner, defeated Lucia Simonelli, a first-time candidate and climate activist.
Brooks will challenge Mackenzie in an Allentown-area seat. He beat former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, former Northampton County executive Lamont McClure and former legislative aide Carol Obando-Derstine.
In the fourth swing district, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti was unopposed for the Democratic nomination to take on GOP U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who also was unopposed in the primary.
Democrats see opportunity
In 2018, the last midterm election cycle under Trump, Pennsylvania Democrats flipped four Republican-held congressional seats. In 2024, Perry and Mackenzie’s margins of victory were among the slimmest in that year’s House races — smaller than the margin by which Trump won those districts in the presidential election.
Fitzpatrick won more comfortably, but he is just one of three House Republicans elected in districts that also backed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Fitzpatrick and Perry are perennial targets of Democrats and have survived repeatedly. However, Mackenzie is a freshman in his first reelection test.
Without Trump on the ballot, Democrats hope they can capitalize on weaker Republican turnout. Shapiro won the same districts in 2022, and he’s at the top of the party’s ticket this year.
A Philadelphian will go to Washington
Chris Rabb won the Democratic Party’s nomination Tuesday in a hotly contested primary for an open congressional seat in a solidly liberal district in Philadelphia.
Rabb, a self-described “proud troublemaker,” is a member of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, where he made a name for himself by backing left-wing causes. He will almost certainly go to Washington next year to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Dwight Evans, since no Republican filed to run in the majority-Black district.
Rabb was endorsed in the four-way primary by progressive stalwarts, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and online streamer Hasan Piker.
He fended off Sharif Street, a state senator and former state party chair who had prominent establishment backers and a familiar name as the son of John F. Street, the city’s former two-term mayor. Rabb also beat Dr. Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon who was backed by millions of dollars from 314 Action, a left-leaning political action committee aimed at electing scientists to Congress.