Mail-in votes favor Cognetti as early results come in

SCRANTON — Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti jumped out to an early lead Tuesday in her midterm matchup with incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan.

In the 8th Congressional District spanning all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike and parts of Luzerne and Monroe counties, Cognetti had tallied 96,920 votes as of about 9:25 p.m. to Bresnahan’s 58,554. Cognetti unsurprisingly claimed a majority of mail-in votes reported thus far, 53,218 to 20,209, but also held a modest 5,357-vote lead over Bresnahan in Election Day votes.

Cognetti, Scranton’s mayor since 2020, hopes to unseat Bresnahan, a first-term GOP incumbent, and bolster her party’s chances of taking majority control of Congress.

Her supporters are gathered at the Hilton Scranton and Conference Center downtown, many watching national election coverage on a pair of televisions set up parallel to each other on opposite sides of the ballroom. Among those spotted so far were former three-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, the scion of a Democratic political dynasty in the city, and Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan.

Watching one of the television screens was Old Forge resident Bernie Andreoli, a registered independent supporting Cognetti.

“I’m here to see Paige win,” he said. “We need to turn this country around and get it going in the right direction. It’s been going in the wrong direction, and I’m seeing a lot of blue up there and it’s making me really happy. I might actually be able to sleep tonight, and I haven’t for the last two years.”

Bresnahan’s supporters are gathered at at Sabatini’s Bottle Shop & Bar in Exeter, where Terri Zezza, a retired Exeter woman, said she’s supporting the GOP incumbent because “I know that he could do a lot of good for this state.”

“And we need someone in there like Rob, who is down-to-earth and who cares for Americans, and who wants to ship these illegals back to where they belong, and just clean up this whole state and get it back to what it was,” she said. “And Rob has our support 100%.”

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