The factional civil war among Lackawanna County Democrats that erupted anew last month over a stymied effort to oust 76 elected county Democratic Committee members coincides with a much more consequential political battle that will culminate in November.
Lackawanna, where registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts by more than 24,000, is the Democratic stronghold in the 8th Congressional District that could determine which party controls the House of Representatives for the last two years of the second Trump administration. County voters will play a key role in what’s expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive House races, with Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti trying to wrest the 8th District seat from incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Dallas Twp.
Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and U.S. Rob Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp. (TIMES-TRIBUNE FILE)
As the county Democratic Committee prepares to elect new leadership Tuesday at a reorganization meeting overseen by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, which intervened in the local dispute to facilitate that process, the potential electoral implications of the intraparty strife aren’t yet known. But some local politicos say the clash that energized a self-described reformist faction of the county party could galvanize voters, benefiting Democratic candidates and Cognetti in particular.
Others aren’t convinced the recent drama will help Democrats, or that the Democratic dissension will have much if any impact on the congressional race.
Infighting
The ultimately fruitless attempt by outgoing county Democratic Chairman Chris Patrick to oust the 76 committee members, generally members of the reformist faction, was the latest salvo in a Democratic sectarian conflict that erupted last year over the controversial process of replacing former Lackawanna County Commissioner Matt McGloin.
Patrick, who is not seeking reelection as county party chair, advised the 76 in letters last month that they’re ineligible to serve because they violated county party rules for supporting independent candidates in elections last year. That’s when a number of longtime Democrats ran as independents against official Democratic nominees, including in the special election to replace McGloin.
Protestors backing a commissioner special election and pushing for new county Democratic Party leadership chant “let us vote” outside of the Dickson City Community Center on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Several local elected Democrats, including state Rep. Kyle Donahue and state Sen. Marty Flynn, quickly denounced Patrick’s attempt to remove the members. Donahue, one of the committee members targeted for removal, said in a statement that Democrats “should be focused on defeating Republicans” and delivering results for constituents, not “engaging in an internal power struggle.”
The state party subsequently intervened, with its executive committee voting to facilitate the county committee’s pending reorganization with all members, including the 76, participating. Its statement confirming that action also referenced the party’s “primary objective, electing Democrats up and down the ballot.”
Tuesday’s reorganization will feature competing slates of Democrats vying for county party leadership positions. At the top of those slates, Newton Twp. committeewoman Lexie Kelly, the reformist faction’s candidate, and Larissa Cleary Valonis, committeewoman for Archbald’s Ward 1 Precinct 2, are both running to serve as the county party’s next chair.
Vacancies notwithstanding, there are 326 seats on the county Democratic Committee, with 163 reserved for men and 163 reserved for women.
‘Something different’
In the context of the 8th District race, Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan sees the energy the recent intraparty fight engendered as potential wind in the sails of Cognetti’s campaign as she and Bresnahan barrel toward November. Gaughan, who spent much of 2025 in a bitter legal fight with Patrick and the county committee over the McGloin-replacement process, pointed to a recent gathering the reformers held at Voodoo Brewing in Scranton.
“I heard a lot from people in that crowd that they are sick and tired of what’s going on locally in the Democratic Party,” he said. “They saw the nonsense that went on to replace Commissioner McGloin, and all the things that I was fighting against. … And again, it’s that old-school mentality. It doesn’t work anymore. People are looking for something different. They’re looking for something that makes sense to them and that they can get involved in and be proud of, and I think that is the movement that you’re seeing now in terms of the Democratic Party in Lackawanna County.”
Michael Cappellini, another ally of the reformers who switched from Democrat to independent to run in last year’s commissioner special election, made a similar case.
“I think that when we talk about what is going on at the committee level at this point, you’re not just talking about the committee people,” he said. “Those committee people were elected by their peers, so people are paying attention. The fact that these 76 people got these letters invigorated — invigorated — so many people that weren’t involved originally.”
While Cappellini thinks that energy and engagement will benefit Cognetti and other Democratic candidates, he’s also confident that winning elections remains a common goal of county Democrats regardless of where they might fall along the factional divide.
“I think that overall the thought process is looking forward, not so much what’s going on today,” Cappellini said. “I think today you can make the argument that people are very concentrated on the discussions that are being had, but the overall goal from every side of the argument seems to be to get Democrats elected down the ballot.”
Whether the reformist faction succeeds in capturing the county party’s leadership remains to be seen, but the fight itself seems to align well with Cognetti’s political brand.
Cognetti comfortably won a 2019 special election for Scranton mayor as an independent candidate in the wake of disgraced Democratic Mayor Bill Courtright’s corruption scandal. She criticized at the time the city Democratic Committee’s closed-door nominating process and said the local party didn’t reflect the Democratic ideals she’d long championed.
Her slogan, “Paige Against the Machine,” originally referred to her “fight to take on corruption against the local Democratic machine,” per her congressional campaign website. Cognetti has also made “anti-corruption” a theme of her congressional run, something Gaughan said resonates with voters fed up with “blatant corruption” at the federal level.
“You have a president and a Congress who is just weakening our institutions and just blowing through norms that have been established since the founding of the country in 1776,” he said. “And I think that locally they see, I don’t want to say corruption, but they see things that are being done the wrong way. I mean it’s not fair, you kick 76 people off a committee for supporting people who were Democrats who had no choice but to switch to be independents because there’s all sorts of backroom maneuvering. We’re not dumb. We know what’s going on. We know who is behind it, and we want it to stop.”
Impact debated
Patrick, who said he wouldn’t seek another term as county Democratic chairman long before his letters reignited the intraparty conflict, doesn’t think it will have much bearing on the Bresnahan/Cognetti race.
“Democrats are going to vote for Democrats,” he said, arguing intraparty fights “don’t really change anybody’s opinion of who they’re going to support” in elections between candidates of different parties. “They can feel one way about people in charge of the Democratic Committee, but … you’re either voting for Paige Cognetti or you’re not.”
Patrick also pointed to special elections last year, when official Democratic nominees soundly defeated Democratic-turned-independent candidates backed by members of the reformist faction. Cappellini finished third in the commissioner special election behind Democrat Thom Welby, the winner, and Republican Chet Merli. In the special election for an unexpired county clerk of judicial records term, Democrat Lauren Bieber Mailen comfortably beat Republican Susanne Preambo Green and independent candidate Colleen Eagen Gerrity, a former Democratic state committeewoman who billed herself as the real Democrat in the race but finished third.
“We just keep electing Democrats, and I’m proud of that,” Patrick said. “If they want to refer to me as the machine and old-school politics and backroom politics and backdoor politics, look it, there’s nothing like that.”
Lackawanna County Republican Party Chairman Dan Naylor, meanwhile, said some voters are likely to see the local Democratic infighting as a sign of dysfunction.
“I think they’re going to probably begin to look at the Republican Party and say ‘we didn’t see that with them,’” Naylor said. “And let’s face it, the Democrat Party has left a lot of the local people here with the radicalness and the socialism.”
There’s no shortage of local Democrats who’d dispute those labels, but the Democratic voter registration advantage in Lackawanna County has eroded considerably over more than the past decade.
In the 2020 primary election, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans in Lackawanna by 40,822, down from about 48,000 during the 2016 presidential election and from about 60,000 as recently as May 2009, according to newspaper records. State data updated Monday shows they now outnumber Republicans in the county by about 24,221.
Registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts by about 13,047 in the 8th Congressional District that includes all of Lackawanna, Pike and Wayne and parts of Luzerne and Monroe counties, per the state data. Bresnahan won his seat two years ago by defeating longtime incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright by 6,252 votes.
Reorganization
The direction the county party takes under its next leadership, and what it does to engage Lackawanna voters in the coming months, could also bear on the 8th District race. And both women running to lead the local party said unity will be important.
Kelly, the reformist faction’s candidate for chair, believes the recent drama galvanized Democrats and laid bare a number of issues with the county party under its former leadership.
“We have an opportunity now to bring everybody to the table and to welcome people into the party,” she said, describing the 76 committee members fruitlessly targeted for removal, a group that includes her, as workers. “They’re willing to canvas and door knock and make phone calls. They’re willing to do the work that it takes to get people elected.”
She also articulated something of a path forward for the local party.
“You bring people to the table, you listen to them, you treat them like they’re part of the Democratic family, you stop allowing political retaliation,” Kelly said. “That’s unity. That’s how you unify the Democrats.”
Valonis, the other candidate for chair, similarly said county Democrats “have a real chance here not to just close a chapter but to really start building something better,” regardless of who wins the leadership position.
“I think what has happened in the last few weeks has been a symptom of a much bigger issue,” she said. “Unfortunately the party has not made the news for any positive things. I think our process for selecting party leadership, holding ourselves to our own bylaws, all of that has fallen short and the past few years has made that obvious to everyone. But I really want to focus on what we need to build next rather than relitigate what didn’t work, because I’m well aware it didn’t work.”
Valonis, who remains optimistic “about the opportunity that’s right in front of us,” said she was initially asked by both sides of the county party divide to join their leadership slates ahead of the pending reorganization.
“At the time I actually turned down those two competing slates before agreeing to run, and ultimately I said yes because our local elected officials asked me and came to me to help bring both sides of the party together rather than watch another cycle of infighting, which can cost us some seats that we cannot afford to lose in the upcoming election,” she said. “What I kind of envision is just building a party that follows its own rules, is transparent with its own members, is focused on winning as a party and not on settling any scores.”
Beyond the current moment, both Valonis and Kelly stressed the importance of winning in November.
“The infighting is terrible, but we’re going to have to figure out how to move forward together,” Kelly said. “We cannot afford to let this election get out in front of us. We don’t want to be chasing it. We need to be in it to win it.”