SCRANTON, Pa. — This Pennsylvanian city has long been lauded as the “home of” several Democrats running for higher office statewide: Bob Casey, the late governor, and his son, the former Sen. Bob Casey Jr., and Hillary Clinton’s father, Hugh Rodham. Hillary was baptized here and spent her summers as a child on Lake Winola, located about 15 miles north, at the family cottage built by her grandfather.
And if you somehow do not remember this from all of the years that former President Joe Biden was running either for vice president or president, he was born here and lived on the same Washington Avenue that the Caseys did.
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The city is a Democratic stronghold. But today, not so much.
On Tuesday, Mayor Paige Cognetti launched her campaign to run as the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District while simultaneously running for reelection for mayor.
The Oregon native who attended Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon told the university in an interview after her win, “I am truly progressive in a lot of ways. But I take a pragmatic approach to the problems we have in places like Scranton.”
Cognetti, who holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, worked on the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania in 2008, then joined his administration in the Treasury Department as the managing director for China operations and adviser to the undersecretary for International Affairs.
Cognetti, who holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, won reelection to the mayor’s office in 2021 and is now seeking her second full term as a Democrat.
On Tuesday she took the fight directly to the sitting congressman, Rob Bresnahan, going after his stock trading as her attack on the freshman representative, an attack that was widely anticipated thanks to a whisper to the New York Times in a story aimed at Breshahan that reported: “Democrats are enthusiastic about her potential candidacy and expect Mr. Bresnahan’s stock trading to be a core part of the case they continue to make against him.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer also penned a headline that predated her announcement that read: “Rob Bresnahan’s stock trades fuel doubts about GOP hold on key Pa. swing seat”.
In an interview with WVIA, the local public radio station, Bresnahan said House ethics rules to date have thwarted his attempts to place his investments and stocks into a blind trust that blocks him from controlling or knowing about his trades.
“The ethics process is prehistoric, and it’s downright excruciating. And it’s been a long process that really leaves people that existed in the real world and came from different careers in a bind when you want to provide a life of public service,” he told WVIA.
The Kingston native became the CFO of his grandfather’s business, Kuharchik Construction, before he turned 20. Three years later, he was the CEO of the business, which his grandfather, an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers electrician, started out of his garage with his grandmother in 1973.
Cognetti said in her video announcement: “Rob was handed the keys to a family fortune at 19. Workers here built that company. Rob sold it to foreign private equity.”
Not exactly true. In a 2022 appearance on the On the Stacks podcast, Bresnahan talked about purchasing the company with a stipulation from his grandparents that he receive a four-year college degree. His attorney sent a statement to broadcasters that he bought the family business at a fair-market rate.
As for the family company being sold to a foreign private equity firm, nuance is missing. CAI Capital partnered with Midwestern Electric, which provides specialty electrical services to the municipal and state owners of the U.S. Midwest’s traffic infrastructure, who invested in Kuharchik Construction.
When the investment was announced in 2023, Midwestern Electric noted that Bresnahan had retained a meaningful equity stake in the combined business.
The Scranton mayor’s bid was given the air of inevitability in print and on social media Tuesday.
Keystone College political science professor Jeff Brauer said this district has truly become a swing district.
“However, it has become more red recently through Trump’s populism and redistricting. Cartwright held his own for a while, but in each election, he won by smaller and smaller margins,” he said of the erosion of progressive Democrats in the region.
Brauer points out that Cognetti is Scranton’s first female mayor, “And is a carpetbagger of sorts, since she is not a Scranton native. Ideologically, she is quite progressive, and while she is popular in the city of Scranton, one of its nicknames is Pennsylvania’s Progressive City.”
Brauer said it will be interesting to see how she navigates the more rural parts of the district.
“She is a big fan of President Biden, a native of Scranton, and led efforts to name local streets and an expressway after Biden. So there is a potential that this race could turn into a micro-rematch of Biden-Trump.”
Brauer said Cognetti’s strategy to paint Bresnahan as a spoiled elite is not new. “
“Cartwright tried that too, and he obviously ended up losing – Cartwright himself could certainly be considered an elite,” he said.
Brauer said that Cognetti, who comes from a slightly humbler background, will have more success with that strategy.
“If she wins, she will be the first woman to represent the district.”
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Brauer predicts that Cognetti will run a populist left campaign.
“Like a Bernie Sanders. That will certainly give Bresnahan a run for his money. However, unless the ethics problems that Bresnahan is beginning to face blows up, Bresnahan will be difficult to unseat in a district that has become redder and redder.”