Long before Tuesday’s primary election, proverbial punches had already been thrown in the midterm matchup between Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan and Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti.

Voters paying attention to the 8th Congressional District race may know that the latter accused the former in March of public corruption, blasting Bresnahan over the stock-trading controversy that’s dogged him since last spring despite his long-maintained lack of involvement in his stock trades while serving in Congress.

They may also know that Republicans have accused Cognetti of “shady dealings” involving Fidelity Bank, which she flatly rejects, or that a National Republican Congressional Committee-funded website branded her “Machete Cognetti” following a horrific December machete attack that killed two residents of a downtown Scranton apartment building and critically wounded a third.

And they should certainly brace for more broadsides in what’s likely to become a full-scale political donnybrook in the months ahead.

Neither Bresnahan nor Cognetti faced a primary challenger ahead of what’s expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive House races this November. With that in mind, here are some things that could impact the dynamic of the race in the intervening time:

Gas prices, Iran

In a year when Republican incumbents are already battling the “midterm curse” — the tendency for the president’s party to lose congressional seats in the midterm elections — high gas and fuel prices prompted by President Donald Trump’s largely unpopular war with Iran represent a potential major headwind for the GOP.

A recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released earlier this month found 60% of Americans and 22% of Republicans disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran, while 61% of Americans and 25% of Republicans say U.S. military action there has done more harm than good.

More than 80% of Americans say they feel either major strain, 33%, or minor strain, 48%, on their household budgets due to the current price of gas, with 63% of residents nationally placing “a great deal or good amount of blame” on Trump, per the poll. That includes 89% of Democrats, 32% of Republicans and 63% of independents.

Amid a fragile ceasefire, Trump warned Iran in a Truth Social post Sunday that the “Clock is Ticking” to reach a peace deal, writing “they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them.” The president said in a Monday post on the same platform that, at the request of several Middle East allies, he was holding off a military attack on Iran originally planned for Tuesday because “serious negotiations are now taking place.”

If an enduring resolution to the Iran situation proves elusive and gas prices remain high as a result of the conflict’s ongoing impact on the global oil market, voters may take out their frustrations on Republican incumbents like Bresnahan. Conversely, a diplomatic end to the foreign conflict and a reduction in gas prices could improve the GOP’s electoral prospects this fall.

In 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the kinetic war there and resulting sanctions drove escalating oil prices during the Biden administration, Republicans used the high price of gas and the broader issue of affordability as a cudgel against Democrats. The national average for a gallon of regular gas topped $5 that June, an all-time high, but eventually abated, falling below $4 that August and to about $3.76 by late October.

The decline and unrelated events that galvanized Democratic voters, including the Supreme Court’s controversial June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, helped Democrats outperform expectations in the 2022 midterms. Republicans won back the House of Representatives, but only narrowly, while Democrats gained one net seat in the Senate.

Republicans maintained their narrow House majority in the 2024 election that saw Bresnahan win his 8th District seat by defeating longtime Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright. They made affordability, inflation, the border and other issues key planks of their messaging that cycle, when voters delivered unified control of Congress and the White House to the GOP.

But the affordability issue that was a political boon for Republicans two years ago could prove a liability this time around. The national average for a gallon of regular gas as of Tuesday was about $4.53, lower than the Pennsylvania average of nearly $4.64, according to AAA. The national average in late February, just before the military operations in Iran began, was about $2.98.

Data centers

The demand for data center development driven by the rapid proliferation and adoption of artificial intelligence will continue to impact American politics as local battles over whether and where to permit data centers play out here and elsewhere. In Northeast Pennsylvania, and particularly in Lackawanna County, controversial proposals to build massive data center campuses and the infrastructure to support them have prompted unprecedented pushback from a bipartisan coalition of data center opponents.

It seems likely that a certain percentage of voters for whom data center opposition is a top issue will reward local, state and national-level politicians who share their view at the ballot box. At the same time, politicians perceived as fence-sitters or insufficiently opposed to data centers could suffer the wrath of voters fighting at the grassroots level to stop or limit that development locally.

CNBC reported in April that “political angst” prompted by Pennsylvania’s data center boom could compound challenges for GOP House incumbents, including Bresnahan, fighting for reelection in competitive districts. That might prove true despite the fact that zoning and land-use decisions involving data centers are made at the municipal level.

“The novelty of the hyperscale data center buildout presents a unique set of circumstances for politicians to navigate, as data centers remain one of the few issues in a polarized political environment without positions specifically delineated along party lines,” per the CNBC report. “An unlikely coalition has been built in the data center opposition movement, with environmental groups coming together with populist Trump supporters.”

It’s a strange-bedfellows phenomenon often cited by Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan, who’s made fierce opposition to both data centers and Trump administration immigration-enforcement tactics defining features of his political brand. Republican residents who vehemently disagree with Gaughan’s ICE criticism have approached him to compliment his anti-data center advocacy, he said, noting the issue “defies political ideology and political party.”

The data center issue can be a political liability for Democratic incumbents and candidates, too, depending on their stance, Gaughan said.

“I think what we’re seeing is a national moment where communities across the entire country are being asked to surrender enormous pieces of themselves to an economic model that’s really built around endless digital consumption, AI, automation, and ordinary middle-class people, which is really what comprises Lackawanna County, are asking … who actually benefits from all this?” Gaughan said. “We know the technology has brought incredible advances, but we’re literally watching it hollow out parts of our society in real time.”

In a statement, Bresnahan said it “should be up to local communities to decide whether they welcome the development of these data centers, to what extent, and where.”

“While data centers can bring family-sustaining jobs to our communities, it’s imperative we establish guardrails to make sure NEPA residents aren’t footing the bill, their cost of living is unaffected, and that local residents have the final say on whether these projects move forward,” he said.

Noting the region’s “long history of being taken advantage of by self-serving politicians and greedy corporations,” Cognetti called what’s happening in Lackawanna County “extraction, not development.” In a statement, she said she’s working with Scranton’s Law Department and experts in a range of industries to “understand what our options are at the local government level.”

“We have to figure out a way for small municipalities to hold the line against speculative developers,” she said. “There can be a path forward for some data centers to be built — responsibly, with all interests at the table, with local union labor, and far from homes, schools and recreation areas.”

“But the approach has to be about protecting our way of life, real job growth, public health, and lowering energy costs while building energy capacity — the opposite of what we’ve seen from Rep. Bresnahan as he’s touted billions in nebulous ‘development’ by investment firms and personally profited from trading in data center stocks,” Cognetti charged.

Politico reported in January that Bresnahan bought stock last June in Credo Technology — describing it as “a company that provides electric cables and chips for data centers” — after touting data centers as potential catalysts for regional economic growth. A Bresnahan spokeswoman told Politico the purchase totaled $1,454 and reiterated that Bresnahan “doesn’t trade his own stocks.”

Campaign finances

Neither Bresnahan nor Cognetti has struggled to raise campaign funds to this point, and both are likely to carry relatively large war chests into the dog days of their midterm campaigns. That means money for advertising to promote themselves and target their opponents.

But the sources of funding for the respective campaigns could emerge as storylines between now and November.

Cognetti, who launched her congressional campaign in September, outraised Bresnahan in the first quarter of 2026 and in April, ending the month with almost the same amount of cash on hand as her GOP opponent. She’s reported total receipts this election cycle of about $3.1 million and total disbursements of about $852,243. Bresnahan, who has had a longer fundraising window, reported receipts totaling $4.6 million and disbursements of about $2.4 million this cycle.

In terms of cash on hand, Bresnahan’s campaign reported about $2.27 million as of the last reporting period compared to Cognetti’s $2.25 million.

A breakdown of individual contributions to candidates by contributor state is available in table and map form on the Federal Election Commission’s website. It reflects processed data that has been categorized and coded by the FEC, not raw data pulled directly from electronic reports submitted by the campaign committees.

The processed data available as of Tuesday apparently only captures contributions through the end of the first quarter, not the most-recent filings for April. But it shows Cognetti’s campaign raised $416,166.14 from Pennsylvania, $475,693.47 from California and $320,597.27 from New York, along with totals from other states, as of the end of March.

Bresnahan, who’s been fundraising longer and brought in more money overall, raised $852,407.31 via individual contributions from Pennsylvania, $398,390.64 from Florida and $334,672.62 from Texas, among other examples, per the processed data.

Republican operatives have already seized on the relatively large amount of money Cognetti’s raised via individual contributions from California. If that trend continues and her California donations continue to outpace those from Pennsylvania, it could give ammo to Republicans working on multiple fronts to paint the Oregon native as a radical more aligned with the progressive politics of the West Coast than voters in the purple district she hopes to represent.

Among other examples, the NRCC, which sometimes refers to Cognetti as “Portland Paige,” accused her in an April email blast of “trying to import the far-left extremism that’s decimated cities on the West Coast into Northeast Pennsylvania.”

Bresnahan’s campaign has referred to her as a “Goldman Sachs banker,” a reference to her time working for Goldman Sachs from about 2014 to 2016, and has repeatedly accused her of ignoring her mayoral duties to court out-of-state donors. It’s also attempted to portray her as a political climber.

“Political opportunist Paige Cognetti views Scranton families as little more than another rung in her climb up the political ladder,” an NRCC spokesman said in an early-May email. “Cognetti doesn’t care about serving Pennsylvanians, she cares about advancing her career.”

The potency and ultimate effectiveness of that messaging remains to be seen in the context of the race where the stock-trading controversy will likely continue fueling Democratic attacks portraying Bresnahan, who campaigned on banning stock trading by members of Congress, as a hypocrite out of touch with the district’s working-class voters.

“NEPA voters are going to continue to hear about how Bresnahan has played the stock market while voting to screw them over in Washington,” a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman said in a press release earlier this month. “It will define his time in Washington and be a major reason why he loses his seat.”

Visits

National political figures appearing alongside candidates during election cycles can also give momentum to campaigns and boost voter enthusiasm.

Trump, who held a December rally at Mount Airy Casino Resort in Monroe County featuring Bresnahan and other GOP House incumbents, is the most-prominent figure to appear here this cycle. Bresnahan, one of the speakers to introduce the president there, said at the time that Trump’s return to the area “reflects our shared commitment to strengthening the middle class, rebuilding American industry and investing in regions just like ours.”

He’s appeared locally with several visiting high-ranking Trump administration officials in the months since, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler; Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum; and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, also attended a local fundraiser for Bresnahan at private home in April.

For her part, Cognetti joined former astronaut, retired U.S. Navy captain and combat pilot and current Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona last month at an “anti-corruption town hall” in Luzerne County, where she again targeted Bresnahan’s stock-trading controversy. Kelly’s high-profile clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a particularly polarizing figure in the Trump administration, have raised his profile and bolstered his bona fides among Democrats.

On Wednesday, Cognetti and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro will meet with voters in Luzerne County, Bresnahan’s home county, as the campaign shifts to the general election.

Cognetti’s personal friendship with former President Joe Biden was also well documented during his time in office. She regularly appeared alongside Biden during his visits to Scranton, his boyhood hometown, touted Scranton’s American Rescue Plan Act investments during an Oval Office meeting with Biden in 2024 and even traveled to Ireland to represent Scranton during Biden’s 2023 trip there.

It’s not clear how active Biden, who last visited Scranton to campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just before the 2024 presidential election, might be on the midterm campaign trail this year. National reporting by Axios and other outlets suggests some Democratic candidates still see a Biden association as a potential political liability after his unpopular presidency and the beating Democrats took at the ballot box in 2024.

In general, proximity to polarizing figures who excite some members of the electorate can alienate others.

Trump’s approval rating remains high among Republicans, but polls show it having cratered among independents, a group of voters that could prove invaluable to either Bresnahan or Cognetti in a district where nearly 88,000 registered voters don’t belong to either major party.

Local Republican pundits and commentators have seized on a photo Cognetti shared on social media last year, before launching her congressional campaign, of herself with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others at a 2025 protest in downtown Scranton. Pelosi, a Democratic Party stalwart long used as an avatar for liberal politics in GOP attack ads, has faced scrutiny in recent years over her husband’s prolific stock trading.

The midterm elections are Nov. 3. Time will tell who stumps here for Bresnahan and Cognetti between now and then.