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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFILE – U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., speaks at a campaign event at Arooga’s sports bar, Sept. 30, 2026, in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo\/Marc Levy, File)<\/p>\n
Asked if he needed to differentiate himself from an unpopular Trump to win, Perry brushed off the question.<\/p>\n
\u201cI speak for myself. I don\u2019t speak for him, and he doesn\u2019t speak for me,\u201d Perry told The Associated Press. \u201cIf you want to know where I stand on an issue, the issue is mine. I\u2019ve always been that way. Nothing\u2019s changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats see Perry as vulnerable<\/p>\n
Democrats have long believed that Perry was vulnerable because of his hard-right politics that look increasingly out of step with a Republican-leaning district that is moderating as Harrisburg\u2019s suburbs grow.<\/p>\n
He defeated Stelson by only 1 percentage point in 2024, making it one of the country\u2019s closest House races that year. Trump won the district by 5 percentage points against Democrat Kamala Harris, a performance that analysts say suggests that loyal Trump voters pulled Perry across the finish line.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration seems interested in helping Perry win.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security attacked Stelson in a public statement after the arrest of a Nigerian man who it said was in the country illegally and working for Stelson\u2019s campaign. Stelson\u2019s campaign, however, said it didn\u2019t employ the man, spending records didn\u2019t show a payment to him and a nonpartisan watchdog said the department had violated a law intended to keep the federal government from trying to help or hurt candidates for office.<\/p>\n
Perry served as leader of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus in 2022 and 2023, when the caucus was a key player in two high-profile speakership fights.<\/p>\n
The federal investigation into Trump\u2019s effort to prevent Biden from taking office also put Perry in a national spotlight. He became the only member of Congress to have his personal cellphone seized by federal authorities.<\/p>\n
A federal judge later ordered Perry to turn over texts and emails to FBI agents. He was never charged with a crime.<\/p>\n
Perry insists he\u2019s independent of Trump<\/p>\n
Perry is quick to point out that he has disagreements with Trump.<\/p>\n
For instance, he voted in February against a $1.2 trillion spending plan backed by Trump to end a partial federal government shutdown and said he opposes Trump\u2019s plan to allow 600,000 Chinese students into American universities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m one of the guys that stands up against my own party when I think they\u2019re going the wrong way,\u201d Perry said. \u201cAnd not just quietly. Vocally.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a recent visit, Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said he told Perry to lean into his strengths, such as Perry\u2019s nearly four decades in the Army and the National Guard that included flying helicopter missions in Iraq.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you compare his record of service, not only to Pennsylvania but the country, I think it\u2019s lights out,\u201d Gruters said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s where he wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Perry has already suffered because of his association with Trump.<\/p>\n
One Republican voter, Terry Wallace, a retired Army colonel, said he had voted for Perry before the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters but won\u2019t anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he led the effort to throw out the Pennsylvania votes from the presidential election,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cI remember the next thing he claimed was the Brits were fixing our voting machines. And then he accused a person, the CIA director, of a cover-up.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same story with Tracy Pawelski. She used to work in the U.S. Capitol and had friends in the Capitol Police, and she came to see Perry as an \u201celection denier and minion of the president\u201d who can\u2019t be trusted.<\/p>\n
Scott Trompeter, a Republican who dislikes Trump, said he\u2019s unhappy that Perry has backed the president at a time when Trompeter, an Air Force veteran, and his girlfriend are clipping coupons to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
On top of rising food and gas prices, Trompeter is aghast at Trump-fueled \u201cnonsense\u201d like Trump\u2019s plans to host military drones, snipers and ammunition inside a ceremonial arch that he wants to build across the Potomac River from Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike, what is going on?\u201d Trompeter said. \u201cAnd then people like Scott Perry will vote for that if it comes to a vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stelson is targeting moderate voters<\/p>\n
Stelson spent almost four decades working in television, mostly as an anchor at the NBC affiliate in the Harrisburg market. She also embedded with the Pennsylvania National Guard in Kosovo, moderated debates and interviewed presidents and other politicians.<\/p>\n
Running for office for the first time in 2024, she easily won a six-way Democratic primary to challenge Perry, despite drawing flack because she didn\u2019t live in the district and had just changed her registration from Republican to Democrat.<\/p>\n
Then, as now, Stelson has crafted a platform designed to sway moderate Republicans. She portrays Perry as helping jack up the cost of living, plays down criticism of Trump and avoids associating herself with the Democratic Party\u2019s left flank.<\/p>\n
For instance, she talks about how Trump strengthened border security while Biden failed, calls herself a fiscal conservative and rejects Perry\u2019s accusation that she would align with the socialist left if elected.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s lying, and he knows he\u2019s lying,\u201d Stelson said.<\/p>\n
She quips that, to beat Perry, she needs to win 5,134 more Republican votes \u2014 one more vote than her losing margin in 2024 \u2014 and dismisses suggestions that pursuing moderates will cost her the Democrats she\u2019ll also need.<\/p>\n
What she worries about, she said, is what people tell her about every day, and that\u2019s their struggle with the cost of living.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t ask me where I sit on a political spectrum,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think they care.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Follow Marc Levy at http:\/\/x.com\/timelywriter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Of all the Republican members of Congress who represent swing districts, there may be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-935347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}