HARRISBURG — An unusual and competitive race is brewing in western Pennsylvania, featuring an independent candidate aided by a heaping of dark money.
Republican Camera Bartolotta represents the 46th Senate District, a former Democratic stronghold south of Pittsburgh that stretches across a swath of hills, river valleys, and farmland, and contains old milltowns and active coal and gas development.
The former businesswoman and actress has earned the ire of some local Republicans who’ve deemed her insufficiently conservative. She beat a well-funded primary challenger, bankrolled by the skill games industry, who leveled that exact argument.
She won't face a Democratic opponent this November, but that doesn’t mean she’s unchallenged.
On the ballot is independent Jodi Borello, a former Republican and environmental organizer who says she’s voted for President Donald Trump three times. She’s eschewed either major party, pitching herself as an economic populist skeptical of data centers and big corporations.
“This campaign is powered by people, not special interests,” her campaign website says. Like most legislative candidates, she has not yet been required to file a campaign finance report, but she’s running digital ads and has purchased TV space.
Borello’s campaign isn’t a quixotic endeavor.
A poll commissioned by State Navigate, a nonprofit focused on state legislatures and helmed by a bipartisan board, shows Bartolotta and Borello are tied. The poll also found 14% of respondents to be undecided, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 points.
The crosstabs show both candidates have crossover appeal, but Borello is doing a better job at winning independents. Borello also has particular strength among voters who identify as “far right” (31% of whom are definitely or probably voting for her) regardless of party affiliation, even as she wins over a clear majority of left-of-center voters. State legislative polling is rare because it’s difficult to sample small districts; this is the only public poll that has been released on the race.
Bartolotta’s campaign purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars in cable TV ads in recent weeks, per FCC records viewed by Spotlight PA, and ran an attack ad against Borello online. Asked about the spending, Bartolotta said: “You take every race seriously. I’ve taken every race seriously, even if I didn’t have an opponent.”
There’s also been major spending to target Bartolotta. Coalfield Justice Action, a dark money group, has spent at least $10,500 on digital ads attacking the senator’s record on data centers. FCC records also show the 501(c)(4) nonprofit is buying airtime on cable TV in the region.
“State Senator Camera Bartolotta wants to make it easier for Big Tech billionaires to bring massive data centers into towns across Pennsylvania,” one such digital ad says, per Meta’s database. “And while a wealthy few cash out, our communities will pay the price with higher utility bills, tanked home values, and destroyed land.”
Coalfield Justice Action is closely related to the Center for Coalfield Justice, an environmental watchdog that has monitored fossil fuel development in southwestern Pennsylvania. The groups share an executive director and address. Borello was previously employed by the Center for Coalfield Justice.
Coalfield Justice Action is not required to disclose its donors and only files financial reports once a year. Its sole federal filing in 2025 showed the group had about $200,000 on hand.
Because its ads don’t mention the election, Coalfield Justice Action is not required to file campaign finance reports. (A 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling separated issue ads about an elected official’s stances from campaign ads that explicitly call for a candidate’s defeat.) The group is registered to lobby, not campaign.
Robin Kolodny, a Temple University professor who studies campaign finance, told Spotlight PA that issue ads are less effective at influencing election results than regular campaign ads.
“If you don't want to hide your identity, you can be more effective at a third of the cost,” Kolodny said. “If it's much more important to you that the identity is hidden, then go ahead and do the 501(c)(4).”
Sarah Martik, executive director of both organizations, told Spotlight PA in an email that Coalfield Justice Action “has been organizing our neighbors to demand Sen. Bartolotta stop her support of data center development, and to make sure every person in our community knows that Sen. Bartolotta has shown she is on the side of Big Tech and data center developers, not us.” She added her organization will report its spending on an upcoming lobbying disclosure.
Bartolotta’s legislative record does include support for data center development, including a 2021 vote to create a state tax break for the industry and a bill she sponsored last year for "accelerated data center permitting.”
Bartolotta acknowledged her record, but argued that “the animal changed.” “We don’t have a crystal ball when it comes to these things,” she said. The pitch was for “a billion in investment, thousands of servers. We didn’t hear about AI data centers and bitcoin mining.”
She also questioned the motives of those who oppose the data center build-out: “What is the agenda behind all this hysteria? Why is it such a massive, massive battering ram? That should raise red flags for everyone.”
A second dark money group, Independent Candidate Action, is also spending money on the race. FCC filings show it recently began buying tens of thousands of dollars in ads. As of Oct. 8, the national group’s website listed endorsements for four independent candidates for Congress.
The group registered to spend independently on Pennsylvania politics in late September. According to its FEC filings, the group has raised $1.7 million this year since its founding in March, mostly from untraceable donors.
Dark money groups and campaigns can't legally coordinate. That doesn't mean there aren't loopholes.
One is redboxing, a tactic in which campaigns advertise their strategy on their websites, often in red text or in a red-colored box. Borello’s website includes requests for ads similar to those already run against Bartolotta, highlighting the senator’s earlier support for data center development.
Borello’s campaign acknowledged the redboxing, but added, “The idea that Jodi would ever side with a corporation, political boss, or special interest over the people of her community is laughable.”
“Jodi is running as an independent candidate after spending two decades as a Republican because both parties are bought and paid for by special interests,” the campaign said in a statement. “Our campaign stands by every word on our website.”
Independent legislative candidates aren’t rare. Independent legislators are. The only independent listed in the Pennsylvania Senate Library’s archive is John Yudichak, who was elected as a Democrat but left the party in 2019 (he caucused with Republicans).
Only one person has been elected to the Pennsylvania House as an independent within the past century, according to the chamber’s archives. State Rep. Hiram Andrews, a former Capitol reporter and newspaper editor from Cambria County, was first elected in 1932 and governed outside either major party during his first term. He then aligned himself with Democrats, according to newspaper accounts, and went on to become speaker.
Borello previously told Spotlight PA she won’t join a caucus if elected. “And I believe that it will be an advantage for my constituents,” she said, because “I can vote on what my residents need and what they want instead of having to follow a party line.”
Traditionally, the partisan caucuses make committee assignments for their members and provide funding for staff and other expenses. Borello said she’s not too worried about what that would mean for her.
“I’ll do what's best for my constituents here,” Borello previously said. “I'm not worried about renting out a $3,000-a-month office locally.”
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