Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
A major national Democratic super PAC said Thursday it will spend $20 million on ads across four Pennsylvania congressional districts that could help determine whether the party wins control of the U.S. house later this year.<\/p>\n
The House Majority PAC\u2019s investment \u2014 about $6 million more than the PAC poured into Pennsylvania races in the Republican-dominated 2024 election \u2014 could become a significant boost for Democratic candidates facing well-funded Republican incumbents. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s also one of the first signs that national Democrats<\/a> intend to commit resources to unseating five-term U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick<\/a>, the last Republican representing a Philadelphia-area district. <\/p>\n Democrats have long had their eye on winning the Bucks County-based district, though many political observers say the Republican has a better chance of holding onto it compared to the GOP incumbents in the other three competitive districts in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n For the first time since 2020, the PAC is backing efforts to unseat Fitzpatrick as part of an almost $12.9 million ad buy in the Philadelphia media market. <\/p>\n That media market extends to the Lehigh Valley, where the money will also go toward opposing first-term U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R., Lehigh), widely considered the most vulnerable incumbent in Congress this election. <\/p>\n In the Wilkes-Barre market where another freshman, U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr. (R., Lackawanna), is trying to hold onto his seat, the PAC is pushing roughly $3.7 million. <\/p>\n In Harrisburg, the PAC has committed to spend almost $3.5 million against U.S. Rep. Scott Perry<\/a> (R., York). <\/p>\n The PAC is aligned with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), who is poised to become the first Black speaker if Democrats take the House this fall. <\/p>\n The spending in Pennsylvania is planned for the fall and is part of a larger commitment from the PAC to spend $272 million to help Democratic House candidates across the country. Democrats need a net gain of only three seats to win the majority for the second half of President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s term.<\/p>\n Mike Smith, the PAC\u2019s president, said in a statement that the financial commitments show that Democrats are \u201con offense heading into November.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile Democrats are expanding the map nationwide, House Republicans<\/a> are losing ground after failing to lower costs, making health care more expensive, and dragging us into another costly and unpopular foreign war,\u201d Smith said. \u201cDemocrats will take back the House in November, and elect Hakeem Jeffries as the next Speaker.\u201d<\/p>\n The announcement came after new campaign finance filings<\/a> last week revealed Democratic challengers in two competitive districts have built up war chests that rival the incumbents.<\/p>\n Janelle Stelson, a former local television anchor whom Perry narrowly defeated two years ago, raised almost $2.2 million in recent months. That was nearly twice as much as Perry and left Stelson with $3.2 million in her campaign compared to the Republican\u2019s $2.3 million.<\/p>\n Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, running against Bresnahan in a district that covers the northeastern corner of the state, also outraised the GOP incumbent in the last quarter \u2014 almost $1.5 million to his $1.2 million \u2014 while closing in on his total balance of $2.2 million.<\/p>\n But in the 1st Congressional District in the Philadelphia suburbs, Democrats have struggled to keep up with Fitzpatrick.<\/p>\n The Bucks County<\/a> Republican had $7.6 million in his campaign bank account after raising nearly $1.2 million during the first three months of the year \u2014 far eclipsing likely Democratic challenger Bob Harvie<\/a>, a Bucks County commissioner, who raised $428,000 last quarter and had $604,000 in the bank.<\/p>\n Harvie still needs to win the May 19 primary to become the nominee. The Democratic committees in Bucks and Montgomery Counties have rallied behind him as he faces Lucia Simonelli, a grassroots candidate and climate policy adviser.<\/p>\n Mackenzie, the Lehigh Valley Republican who defeated a three-term incumbent Democrat in 2024, is also set to enter the general election campaign with a hefty financial advantage. <\/p>\n His campaign had nearly $2.5 million on hand as of April 1 while four Democrats were spending their more limited resources in a competitive primary race.<\/p>\n The House Majority PAC, the largest political action committee focused exclusively on Democrats winning the House, will likely be one of several outside groups looking to bolster the candidates\u2019 own efforts in the Pennsylvania districts, flooding the airwaves in the process. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will also be targeting the four districts. <\/p>\n Republicans have vowed to protect the seats they won in the wave that came with Trump\u2019s election in 2024. The National Republican Campaign Committee \u2014 which has named Fitzpatrick, Mackenzie, Perry, and Bresnahan among its priority candidates this year \u2014 boasted this week of raising more than its Democratic counterpart through the beginning of this year.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats used to count on a cash advantage to hide their radical policies from voters, but that crutch is now gone,\u201d NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement. \u201cRepublicans have the momentum, the money, and the firepower to take the fight straight to them in November.\u201d<\/p>\n Early announcements of large outside investments are not particularly surprising, but they\u2019re another sign that the four Republican-held swing districts in Pennsylvania \u201care in essence the heart of the 2026 cycle,\u201d said Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amount of spending that\u2019s going to go on \u2014 we\u2019re used to it in Pennsylvania, but it\u2019s going to be exceptional even by our high standards,\u201d Borick said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min A major national Democratic super PAC said Thursday it will spend $20 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[77953,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-173818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-midterm-elections-house-majority-pac-democrats","9":"tag-pennsylvania","10":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","11":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}