{"id":196858,"date":"2026-05-19T16:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/196858\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T16:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:54:07","slug":"pa-election-2026-bob-harvie-vs-lucia-simonelli-in-1st-district-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/196858\/","title":{"rendered":"PA election 2026: Bob Harvie vs Lucia Simonelli in 1st District primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Born and raised in Bristol Borough, Harvie is a lifelong Bucks County resident. Along with Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, Harvie flipped the county board of commissioners to Democratic control in 2019 for <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/what-led-to-the-blue-wave-in-the-philly-suburbs-demographics-strong-candidates-and-trump\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the first time in nearly four decades<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Simonelli, a Lansdale native, holds a doctorate from the University of Maryland. She was previously a scientific advisor in the U.S. Senate. Her campaign focused on providing universal healthcare, tackling corporate greed and taxing the ultra-wealthy.\n<\/p>\n<p>Harvie <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/bob-harvie-congress-brian-fitzpatrick\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">launched his congressional campaign<\/a> in April 2025. At the time, state Sen. Steve Santarsiero, chair of the Bucks County Democratic Committee, told WHYY News that Harvie \u201chas a real chance to win.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Simonelli and a host of candidates challenging Harvie in the Democratic primary <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/1st-congressional-district-election-town-hall\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">criticized the county Democratic Committee\u2019s decision<\/a> to endorse Harvie before the March 10 deadline to get on the ballot.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Fitzpatrick has <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philly-area-gop-congressmen-trying-to-keep-distance-from-president-trump\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">often sought to distance himself from Trump<\/a>, but has faced attacks from Democrats for consistently siding with the Republican Party on critical legislation.\n<\/p>\n<p>On the first round of voting for the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill\u201d last year, Fitzpatrick voted to advance the legislation to the Senate. When the bill came back to the House, he <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/rep-brian-fitzpatrick-trump-spending-bill-bucks-county-midterm-election\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">voted \u201cno\u201d<\/a>, he said, because of amendments on Medicaid the Senate had added.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Born and raised in Bristol Borough, Harvie is a lifelong Bucks County resident. Along with Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25694,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-196858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-elections-2026","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196858","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=196858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}