Pennsylvania primaries spotlight key races for Democrats to retake House

Primaries across Pennsylvania clarified key battlegrounds for November’s midterm elections on Tuesday.

Sixteen of the state’s 17 US representatives are seeking re-election, and Democrats are zeroing in on four districts they view as essential pickup opportunities in their bid to retake the House.

Donald Trump carried Pennsylvania by fewer than two points in 2024, and his return to the White House has sharpened Democratic focus on constituencies they see as vulnerable.

With Republicans having won a narrow majority in the House of Representatives in 2024, and recent redistricting fights in several southern states giving the GOP incremental advantages, Democrats are treating every potential flip in the Keystone state as critical.

Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic governor, sits at the top of the ticket this year. The incumbent faced no primary challenger and is set to run for re‑election against Pennsylvania’s Republican treasurer, Stacy Garrity, who also ran unopposed.

In the state’s first congressional district, Bob Harvie – vice‑chair of the Bucks county board of commissioners – defeated Lucia Simonelli, a former science and climate adviser to Sheldon Whitehouse, a senator. Only registered Democrats could vote in Tuesday’s primary. Harvie will now attempt to unseat Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican who has built his career on a brand of bipartisanship.

Fitzpatrick, who ran unopposed, has served in the House since 2017 and won re‑election by nearly 13 points in 2024, even though it was one of only three districts in Pennsylvania that Kamala Harris won.

In the past, Fitzpatrick has also been willing to break with his party and with Trump on key issues. Last year, he voted against the president’s “one big, beautiful bill” and joined Democrats in signing a discharge petition to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies after a record‑breaking government shutdown over the lapsed tax credits.

In Pennsylvania’s 10th district, Janelle Stelson, a former local news anchor, defeated Justin Douglas , chair of the Dauphin county board of commissioners, in the Democratic primary. She consistently outraised Douglas throughout the race.

In November, she’ll face Scott Perry, a Republican congressman, in a rematch. Stelson challenged Perry in 2024 and lost by just one percentage point.

Perry, the four-term incumbent, is a member, and former chairman, of the House’s ultra-conservative Freedom caucus. Following Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020, he maintained that the election was stolen, and in the lead-up to the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol, Perry introduced Trump to Jeffrey Clark, a fellow election denier who was then a justice department official.

The Cook Political Report ranks the state’s 10th and seventh districts among the most competitive House seats nationwide. In the seventh – which encompasses the Lehigh Valley – Bob Brooks, the union leader, emerged from a four‑way Democratic primary .

Brooks defeated Lamont McClure, a former Northampton county executive, Ryan Crosswell, a federal prosecutor, and Carol Obando‑Derstine, an engineer and former staffer to Bob Casey, the senator.

A former firefighter, Brooks received a wealth of endorsements, including from Shapiro and Bernie Sanders, the independent US senator of Vermont, as well as the prized backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

He’s running in one of the most hotly contested seats in central Pennsylvania, hoping to flip it back after Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican, defeated Susan Wild, the Democratic congresswoman, in 2024. Throughout the primary, out‑of‑state conservative Pac money poured into the district opposing Brooks and boosting McClure.

In the north-east, the Scranton mayor, Paige Cognetti, won the Democratic primary in the eighth district . She’ll face Rob Bresnahan, the Republican who flipped the seat in 2024 – a district that includes Biden’s hometown.

Meanwhile, in the deep blue third district, which covers much of Philadelphia, Chris Rabb won a closely watched primary that became a microcosm of the Democratic party’s internal struggles.

Sharif Street – state senator and son of John Street, a former Philadelphia mayor – entered the race with broad institutional backing. He faced Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon endorsed by Dwight Evans, a retiring incumbent, and Rabb, a state representative who ran as an “aggressively anti‑establishment Democrat”. Rabb racked up support from a number of progressive members of Congress, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna, campaigned on universal healthcare and described US military aid to Israel as supporting genocide in Gaza.

Rabb will have no issue clinching a win in November, given that Kamala Harris won 88% of the district’s votes in 2024. As Democrats continue their post‑mortem of the last presidential election, Rabb’s victory underscores the appetite for insurgent elected candidates in liberal strongholds.

As November comes into view, Democrats will be fighting even further down the ballot to retain their one-seat majority in the state’s house of representatives. Meanwhile Republicans are vying to hold on to control of the Pennsylvania senate.