HARRISBURG — Republicans knocked off Democrats in two perennially contested U.S. House seats in eastern Pennsylvania while U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, one of the hardest right members of the chamber, survived a challenge in a southern Pennsylvania district with more moderate politics.
The defeats of sixth-term Rep. Matt Cartwright and three-term Rep. Susan Wild came as the GOP’s U.S. House majority hung in the balance and Democrats seek a last line of resistance to Donald Trump’s second-term White House agenda.
The Republican victories also ensure that the GOP has recaptured a majority of the state’s congressional delegation, now 10-7, since the party lost it in a slate of 2018 defeats.
Republican Rob Bresnahan, a first-time candidate and developer who runs a family construction company, beat Cartwright in a district around Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Meanwhile, Ryan Mackenzie, a member of the state House of Representatives, beat Wild in a district around Allentown.
Both districts hold narrow Democratic registration advantages, but Republicans have helped fund challengers to Cartwright and Wild for years in hopes of beating them.
Both races were among the nation’s most expensive, with more than $35 million reported spent to the Federal Election Commission in the Wild-Mackenzie race and more than $31 million reported spent in the Cartwright-Bresnahan race.
Cartwright was one of just five Democrats nationally to run for reelection in districts won by Trump in 2020, and the region has notably embraced Trump’s politics since the president-elect first ran for president in 2016.
The sixth-term Perry beat Democrat Janelle Stelson, a first-time candidate and longtime local TV news anchor who is a Republican-turned-Democrat. About $22 million was reported spent in the race.
Perry was chairman of the Freedom Caucus, a hardline faction of conservatives whose politics aren’t necessarily reflective of the fast-growing district around the cities of Harrisburg and York. Republicans hold a slight registration advantage in the district.
Perry also has the distinction of being the only lawmaker to have his cellphone seized by FBI agents investigating the web of Trump loyalists who were central to his bid to remain in power in 2020.
Perry has not been charged with a crime.
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, 14 other incumbents were reelected.
That included Democrats Brendan Boyle and Dwight Evans of Philadelphia; Mary Gay Scanlon, Madeleine Dean and Chrissy Houlahan of suburban Philadelphia; and Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio from the Pittsburgh area.
Republicans who were reelected were Guy Reschenthaler, Mike Kelly, Glenn Thompson and John Joyce from western Pennsylvania, as well as Dan Meuser, Lloyd Smucker and Bryan Fitzpatrick from eastern Pennsylvania.
