Long before Tuesday\u2019s primary election, proverbial punches had already been thrown in the midterm matchup between Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan and Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti.<\/p>\n
Voters paying attention to the 8th Congressional District race may know that the latter accused the former in March of public corruption, blasting Bresnahan over the stock-trading controversy that\u2019s dogged him since last spring despite his long-maintained lack of involvement in his stock trades while serving in Congress.<\/p>\n
They may also know that Republicans have accused Cognetti of \u201cshady dealings\u201d involving Fidelity Bank, which she flatly rejects, or that a National Republican Congressional Committee-funded website branded her \u201cMachete Cognetti\u201d following a horrific December machete attack that killed two residents of a downtown Scranton apartment building and critically wounded a third.<\/p>\n
And they should certainly brace for more broadsides in what\u2019s likely to become a full-scale political donnybrook in the months ahead.<\/p>\n
Neither Bresnahan nor Cognetti faced a primary challenger ahead of what\u2019s expected to be one of the nation\u2019s most competitive House races this November. With that in mind, here are some things that could impact the dynamic of the race in the intervening time:<\/p>\n
Gas prices, Iran<\/p>\n
In a year when Republican incumbents are already battling the \u201cmidterm curse\u201d \u2014 the tendency for the president\u2019s party to lose congressional seats in the midterm elections \u2014 high gas and fuel prices prompted by President Donald Trump\u2019s largely unpopular war with Iran represent a potential major headwind for the GOP.<\/p>\n
A recent NPR\/PBS News\/Marist poll released earlier this month found 60% of Americans and 22% of Republicans disapprove of Trump\u2019s handling of Iran, while 61% of Americans and 25% of Republicans say U.S. military action there has done more harm than good.<\/p>\n
More than 80% of Americans say they feel either major strain, 33%, or minor strain, 48%, on their household budgets due to the current price of gas, with 63% of residents nationally placing \u201ca great deal or good amount of blame\u201d on Trump, per the poll. That includes 89% of Democrats, 32% of Republicans and 63% of independents.<\/p>\n
Amid a fragile ceasefire, Trump warned Iran in a Truth Social post Sunday that the \u201cClock is Ticking\u201d to reach a peace deal, writing \u201cthey better get moving, FAST, or there won\u2019t be anything left of them.\u201d The president said in a Monday post on the same platform that, at the request of several Middle East allies, he was holding off a military attack on Iran originally planned for Tuesday because \u201cserious negotiations are now taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n
If an enduring resolution to the Iran situation proves elusive and gas prices remain high as a result of the conflict\u2019s ongoing impact on the global oil market, voters may take out their frustrations on Republican incumbents like Bresnahan. Conversely, a diplomatic end to the foreign conflict and a reduction in gas prices could improve the GOP\u2019s electoral prospects this fall.<\/p>\n
In 2022, when Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, the kinetic war there and resulting sanctions drove escalating oil prices during the Biden administration, Republicans used the high price of gas and the broader issue of affordability as a cudgel against Democrats. The national average for a gallon of regular gas topped $5 that June, an all-time high, but eventually abated, falling below $4 that August and to about $3.76 by late October.<\/p>\n
The decline and unrelated events that galvanized Democratic voters, including the Supreme Court\u2019s controversial June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, helped Democrats outperform expectations in the 2022 midterms. Republicans won back the House of Representatives, but only narrowly, while Democrats gained one net seat in the Senate.<\/p>\n
Republicans maintained their narrow House majority in the 2024 election that saw Bresnahan win his 8th District seat by defeating longtime Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright. They made affordability, inflation, the border and other issues key planks of their messaging that cycle, when voters delivered unified control of Congress and the White House to the GOP.<\/p>\n
But the affordability issue that was a political boon for Republicans two years ago could prove a liability this time around. The national average for a gallon of regular gas as of Tuesday was about $4.53, lower than the Pennsylvania average of nearly $4.64, according to AAA. The national average in late February, just before the military operations in Iran began, was about $2.98.<\/p>\n
Data centers<\/p>\n
The demand for data center development driven by the rapid proliferation and adoption of artificial intelligence will continue to impact American politics as local battles over whether and where to permit data centers play out here and elsewhere. In Northeast Pennsylvania, and particularly in Lackawanna County, controversial proposals to build massive data center campuses and the infrastructure to support them have prompted unprecedented pushback from a bipartisan coalition of data center opponents.<\/p>\n
It seems likely that a certain percentage of voters for whom data center opposition is a top issue will reward local, state and national-level politicians who share their view at the ballot box. At the same time, politicians perceived as fence-sitters or insufficiently opposed to data centers could suffer the wrath of voters fighting at the grassroots level to stop or limit that development locally.<\/p>\n
CNBC reported in April that \u201cpolitical angst\u201d prompted by Pennsylvania\u2019s data center boom could compound challenges for GOP House incumbents, including Bresnahan, fighting for reelection in competitive districts. That might prove true despite the fact that zoning and land-use decisions involving data centers are made at the municipal level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe novelty of the hyperscale data center buildout presents a unique set of circumstances for politicians to navigate, as data centers remain one of the few issues in a polarized political environment without positions specifically delineated along party lines,\u201d per the CNBC report. \u201cAn unlikely coalition has been built in the data center opposition movement, with environmental groups coming together with populist Trump supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a strange-bedfellows phenomenon often cited by Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan, who\u2019s made fierce opposition to both data centers and Trump administration immigration-enforcement tactics defining features of his political brand. Republican residents who vehemently disagree with Gaughan\u2019s ICE criticism have approached him to compliment his anti-data center advocacy, he said, noting the issue \u201cdefies political ideology and political party.\u201d<\/p>\n
The data center issue can be a political liability for Democratic incumbents and candidates, too, depending on their stance, Gaughan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what we\u2019re seeing is a national moment where communities across the entire country are being asked to surrender enormous pieces of themselves to an economic model that\u2019s really built around endless digital consumption, AI, automation, and ordinary middle-class people, which is really what comprises Lackawanna County, are asking \u2026 who actually benefits from all this?\u201d Gaughan said. \u201cWe know the technology has brought incredible advances, but we\u2019re literally watching it hollow out parts of our society in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, Bresnahan said it \u201cshould be up to local communities to decide whether they welcome the development of these data centers, to what extent, and where.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile data centers can bring family-sustaining jobs to our communities, it\u2019s imperative we establish guardrails to make sure NEPA residents aren\u2019t footing the bill, their cost of living is unaffected, and that local residents have the final say on whether these projects move forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Noting the region\u2019s \u201clong history of being taken advantage of by self-serving politicians and greedy corporations,\u201d Cognetti called what\u2019s happening in Lackawanna County \u201cextraction, not development.\u201d In a statement, she said she\u2019s working with Scranton\u2019s Law Department and experts in a range of industries to \u201cunderstand what our options are at the local government level.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to figure out a way for small municipalities to hold the line against speculative developers,\u201d she said. \u201cThere can be a path forward for some data centers to be built \u2014 responsibly, with all interests at the table, with local union labor, and far from homes, schools and recreation areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the approach has to be about protecting our way of life, real job growth, public health, and lowering energy costs while building energy capacity \u2014 the opposite of what we\u2019ve seen from Rep. Bresnahan as he\u2019s touted billions in nebulous \u2018development\u2019 by investment firms and personally profited from trading in data center stocks,\u201d Cognetti charged.<\/p>\n
Politico reported in January that Bresnahan bought stock last June in Credo Technology \u2014 describing it as \u201ca company that provides electric cables and chips for data centers\u201d \u2014 after touting data centers as potential catalysts for regional economic growth. A Bresnahan spokeswoman told Politico the purchase totaled $1,454 and reiterated that Bresnahan \u201cdoesn\u2019t trade his own stocks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campaign finances<\/p>\n
Neither Bresnahan nor Cognetti has struggled to raise campaign funds to this point, and both are likely to carry relatively large war chests into the dog days of their midterm campaigns. That means money for advertising to promote themselves and target their opponents.<\/p>\n
But the sources of funding for the respective campaigns could emerge as storylines between now and November.<\/p>\n
Cognetti, who launched her congressional campaign in September, outraised Bresnahan in the first quarter of 2026 and in April, ending the month with almost the same amount of cash on hand as her GOP opponent. She\u2019s reported total receipts this election cycle of about $3.1 million and total disbursements of about $852,243. Bresnahan, who has had a longer fundraising window, reported receipts totaling $4.6 million and disbursements of about $2.4 million this cycle.<\/p>\n
In terms of cash on hand, Bresnahan\u2019s campaign reported about $2.27 million as of the last reporting period compared to Cognetti\u2019s $2.25 million.<\/p>\n
A breakdown of individual contributions to candidates by contributor state is available in table and map form on the Federal Election Commission\u2019s website. It reflects processed data that has been categorized and coded by the FEC, not raw data pulled directly from electronic reports submitted by the campaign committees.<\/p>\n
The processed data available as of Tuesday apparently only captures contributions through the end of the first quarter, not the most-recent filings for April. But it shows Cognetti\u2019s campaign raised $416,166.14 from Pennsylvania, $475,693.47 from California and $320,597.27 from New York, along with totals from other states, as of the end of March.<\/p>\n
Bresnahan, who\u2019s been fundraising longer and brought in more money overall, raised $852,407.31 via individual contributions from Pennsylvania, $398,390.64 from Florida and $334,672.62 from Texas, among other examples, per the processed data.<\/p>\n
Republican operatives have already seized on the relatively large amount of money Cognetti\u2019s raised via individual contributions from California. If that trend continues and her California donations continue to outpace those from Pennsylvania, it could give ammo to Republicans working on multiple fronts to paint the Oregon native as a radical more aligned with the progressive politics of the West Coast than voters in the purple district she hopes to represent.<\/p>\n
Among other examples, the NRCC, which sometimes refers to Cognetti as \u201cPortland Paige,\u201d accused her in an April email blast of \u201ctrying to import the far-left extremism that\u2019s decimated cities on the West Coast into Northeast Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bresnahan\u2019s campaign has referred to her as a \u201cGoldman Sachs banker,\u201d a reference to her time working for Goldman Sachs from about 2014 to 2016, and has repeatedly accused her of ignoring her mayoral duties to court out-of-state donors. It\u2019s also attempted to portray her as a political climber.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitical opportunist Paige Cognetti views Scranton families as little more than another rung in her climb up the political ladder,\u201d an NRCC spokesman said in an early-May email. \u201cCognetti doesn\u2019t care about serving Pennsylvanians, she cares about advancing her career.\u201d<\/p>\n
The potency and ultimate effectiveness of that messaging remains to be seen in the context of the race where the stock-trading controversy will likely continue fueling Democratic attacks portraying Bresnahan, who campaigned on banning stock trading by members of Congress, as a hypocrite out of touch with the district\u2019s working-class voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cNEPA voters are going to continue to hear about how Bresnahan has played the stock market while voting to screw them over in Washington,\u201d a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman said in a press release earlier this month. \u201cIt will define his time in Washington and be a major reason why he loses his seat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visits<\/p>\n
National political figures appearing alongside candidates during election cycles can also give momentum to campaigns and boost voter enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
Trump, who held a December rally at Mount Airy Casino Resort in Monroe County featuring Bresnahan and other GOP House incumbents, is the most-prominent figure to appear here this cycle. Bresnahan, one of the speakers to introduce the president there, said at the time that Trump\u2019s return to the area \u201creflects our shared commitment to strengthening the middle class, rebuilding American industry and investing in regions just like ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s appeared locally with several visiting high-ranking Trump administration officials in the months since, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler; Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum; and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, also attended a local fundraiser for Bresnahan at private home in April.<\/p>\n
For her part, Cognetti joined former astronaut, retired U.S. Navy captain and combat pilot and current Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona last month at an \u201canti-corruption town hall\u201d in Luzerne County, where she again targeted Bresnahan\u2019s stock-trading controversy. Kelly\u2019s high-profile clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a particularly polarizing figure in the Trump administration, have raised his profile and bolstered his bona fides among Democrats.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Cognetti and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro will meet with voters in Luzerne County, Bresnahan\u2019s home county, as the campaign shifts to the general election.<\/p>\n
Cognetti\u2019s personal friendship with former President Joe Biden was also well documented during his time in office. She regularly appeared alongside Biden during his visits to Scranton, his boyhood hometown, touted Scranton\u2019s American Rescue Plan Act investments during an Oval Office meeting with Biden in 2024 and even traveled to Ireland to represent Scranton during Biden\u2019s 2023 trip there.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear how active Biden, who last visited Scranton to campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just before the 2024 presidential election, might be on the midterm campaign trail this year. National reporting by Axios and other outlets suggests some Democratic candidates still see a Biden association as a potential political liability after his unpopular presidency and the beating Democrats took at the ballot box in 2024.<\/p>\n
In general, proximity to polarizing figures who excite some members of the electorate can alienate others.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s approval rating remains high among Republicans, but polls show it having cratered among independents, a group of voters that could prove invaluable to either Bresnahan or Cognetti in a district where nearly 88,000 registered voters don\u2019t belong to either major party.<\/p>\n
Local Republican pundits and commentators have seized on a photo Cognetti shared on social media last year, before launching her congressional campaign, of herself with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others at a 2025 protest in downtown Scranton. Pelosi, a Democratic Party stalwart long used as an avatar for liberal politics in GOP attack ads, has faced scrutiny in recent years over her husband\u2019s prolific stock trading.<\/p>\n
The midterm elections are Nov. 3. Time will tell who stumps here for Bresnahan and Cognetti between now and then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long before Tuesday\u2019s primary election, proverbial punches had already been thrown in the midterm matchup between Republican U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[7975,79281,2116,14288,5881,368,15443,87680,5019,1580,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-197539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-cognetti","tag-congressional-district","tag-data-centers","tag-midterm-elections","tag-paige-gebhardt-cognetti","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-president-joe-biden","tag-republican-incumbents","tag-republicans","tag-rob-bresnahan","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197539","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=197539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}