Editor’s note: We are publishing a series of fact-checks of advertisements in the Pennsylvania 8th Congressional District race between incumbent Republican Congressman Rob Bresnahan of Dallas Twp. and Democratic challenger, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti. The election is key for both major parties’ hopes of holding a House majority the next two years.
This 30-second ad is paid for by Rob For PA, Bresnahan’s official campaign committee, and approved by the candidate.
Standing at an island in front of a kitchen sink, Bresnahan deftly catches what appears to be a five-pound stick of bologna flying from the left side of the screen in his right hand. As he spikes the hunk of processed meat onto the marble slab atop the island, he declares, “Paige Cognetti and her allies are full of baloney, spending millions to paint me as something I am not.”
With a neon sign similar to those common in delicatessens flashing the words “Paige Cognetti 100% Baloney” beside him, Bresnahan airs grievances with messaging that has become common in Cognetti’s ads.
Bresnahan says he voted to ban congressional stock trading, and that he doesn’t trade his own stocks.
He adds that Cognetti once worked on Wall Street and for Goldman Sachs, the investment bank and financial services company. He insists she raised taxes, cut benefits and fired teachers, and that she wants to “disarm the police.”
“She’s lying,” the congressman alleges, “and she knows it.”
Bresnahan concludes the ad by saying that his only focus is on Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Key claim
Cognetti is lying about Bresnahan’s record on congressional stock trading while ignoring a previous career on Wall Street.
Is it factual?
There are actually quite a few claims levied in the ad to address and expand upon.
It is true that, in July, Bresnahan voted for the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from buying new stocks and also require public notice before they could sell them. However, critics argued the bill didn’t constitute a total trading ban because it did not prevent members of Congress from holding or selling stocks they owned before being elected, or force a total blind trust or full divestment of those previously owned stocks.
The bill failed to advance in the Senate on Sept. 30 after being unanimously opposed by Democrats.
His assertion that he doesn’t trade his own stocks may, indeed, be true.
Bresnahan has insisted he doesn’t trade his own stocks, leaving that responsibility to a third-party financial adviser who handles his portfolio without any input from him. However, the number of trades made on his behalf, especially during his first year in office in 2025, made his portfolio one of Congress’ busiest. Trading on his portfolio has reduced significantly so far in 2026.
Cognetti, as Bresnahan said, did indeed work at Goldman Sachs in New York City in the Investment Management Division from 2014 until October of 2016, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Cognetti also, as alleged, raised taxes; Two of the six budgets passed during her current tenure as Scranton’s mayor included 2% property tax hikes, in 2023 and 2024.
It is true that Cognetti was a member of the Scranton School Board that voted unanimously in 2018 to lay off 51 teachers district-wide as part of a wider effort to get the district out of financial distress and oversight from the state Department of Education.
Contrary to Bresnahan’s claim, Cognetti has never advocated for the practical disarming of police.
During a virtual town hall held on June 5, 2020 — just 11 days after George Floyd’s killing during police action in Minneapolis — Cognetti reiterated current Scranton Police Department policies on de-escalation before stating that, she would “love to” live in a world where neither police nor citizens had firearms, calling it “a great reality for us to live in.”
She did add, though, that, “I don’t think that’s something that is feasible in the near term. That’s something that we have to work toward.”
In that town hall, Cognetti committed to working toward gun control policies and police force policies in Scranton that are “as progressive and proactive as possible…to reduce the use of force as much as possible.” In the years since, more than $5 million in state and federal grants were allocated to projects benefitting Scranton’s police department under the Cognetti administration.