Brian Fitzpatrick

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While U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Bucks County, is keeping his distance from the president, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Dauphin County, is all in.

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It’s become commonly accepted that President Donald Trump is proving to be a weight on Republicans running for reelection around the country. In Pennsylvania, 70% of voters do not believe the president is doing a good job, according to a Franklin and Marshall poll released Oct. 22.

That has left the four Republican incumbent members of Congress in deeply purple districts navigating strong headwinds as Democrats appear favored to flip congressional seats and possibly take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Two of them could be a test of how much impact Trump will ultimately have had after the votes are counted on Nov. 3. While U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Dauphin County, continues to align himself with the president, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Bucks County, is keeping his distance. Fitzpatrick’s separation strategy may, or may not, protect him in what some strategists call his biggest challenge yet.

“When you look at the paths for Congressman Fitzpatrick and Congressman Perry within their districts, they’ve taken strikingly different strategic approaches,” said Chris Borick, professor of political science and director of the Lehigh University Opinion Observatory. “If this turns out to be a historic wave election, even individuals that have some degree of insulation might not survive, but the odds certainly are much better.”

Fitzpatrick has presented himself as a moderate since he first ran to replace his brother Mike Fitzpatrick in 2016. Facing this cycle’s tough political environment, he has leaned into that depiction and touts his votes against Trump’s proposals, even drawing the president’s ire.

“I’m ranked No. 1, most independent on every scorecard, every single metric,” he said in an interview with WHYY News. “The president has made his thoughts clear about how he feels about me.”

Democrats still accuse Fitzpatrick of voting with Trump when it’s convenient. For example, he voted for the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” when it passed the House by only one vote, and then voted against its final passage when it passed by a four-vote majority.

Overall, he has voted for White House priorities around two-thirds of the time.

Borick said that keeping his distance from the president may be what saves him.

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Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is facing Democrat Bob Harvie in what is widely seen as his most competitive challenge yet.

Halfway across the state, Perry, who’s running for reelection in another deeply purple district, is an unabashed ally of the president and votes with him 96% of the time, according to the Institute for Legislative Analysis.

Perry’s alignment with the values of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement predates the president, having aligned with the Tea Party movement during his first race for Congress in 2012. He later led the right-wing House Freedom Caucus and was the focus of a U.S. House special committee investigating events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Last week, he blamed Trump’s low poll numbers on the media.

“All they get is bad news from the people that have the biggest megaphone that are screaming that they hate Donald Trump 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” Perry said. “A lot of great things are happening in the world.”

Cook Political Report and other analysts have called Perry one of the country’s most vulnerable Republicans, but that hasn’t pushed him to distance himself from the president. Unlike Fitzpatrick, he made an appearance at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas last month, an event dubbed “Trumpapalooza.”

Borick said it’s too late for him to try to dissociate himself from Trump at this stage, even if he wanted to.

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The race in Dauphin County remains close. A Susquehanna Polling and Research survey shows the Democratic nominee, Janelle Stelson, with a 3% lead on Perry, while 4% of voters are still undecided. A Franklin and Marshall poll showed similar results last month.

In their first matchup in 2024, Perry only eked out a 1-point victory over Stelson.

Part of Perry’s woes likely stem from a group of prominent local Republicans who formed the group Republicans Against Perry, which has run ads against the incumbent.

One of the group’s founders, Walter Cohen, is a lifelong Republican who served as Pennsylvania’s attorney general for roughly five months in 1995.

“We do not need a member of Congress that is that closely tied under the strings of Donald Trump,” said Cohen, who lives in Perry’s district.

Cohen added he never voted for Trump or Perry in the past.

Another Republican, Steve Moley, voted for Trump in the past three presidential elections, but said he’s voting Stelson for Congress.

“You don’t hear nothing from him except when he’s getting ready to get reelected and he’s been there for seven terms,” he said. “I’m not a liberal, but I’m kind of voting for her because I don’t want to vote for Scott Perry.”

Fitzpatrick has long been considered the safest among the four districts Democrats are trying to flip. He beat his 2024 challenger, U.S. Army combat veteran Ashley Ehasz, by nearly 13 points.

Some internal polls leaked by Democratic and Republican groups have shown a tightening race, and some pro-Trump groups have shifted their funding priorities in favor of Fitzpatrick.

A New York Times/Inquirer/Siena poll put Fitzpatrick’s challenger, Montgomery County Commissioner Bob Harvie, two points ahead of Fitzpatrick.

That all suggests Fitzpatrick may be significantly more vulnerable now than in previous election cycles.

For some voters in the district, Fitzpatrick’s independence is merely a facade.

“I know he is moderate and he certainly trumpets that aspect of himself. What I find for most moderates is they end up voting most times with the party anyway,” said Jerry Scuppy, a registered independent who lives in the district. “So it’s not that convincing to me.”

Republican Tom Esposito, however, said he plans to vote for Fitzpatrick and appreciates Fitzpatrick’s efforts to find a middle road in Washington, D.C.

“I do consider Fitzpatrick more of a moderate conservative, which is what we need,” he said. “You have to get things done by negotiating and I don’t think that’s happening. It’s a give and take.”

For Democrat Jean Barrell, however, Fitzpatrick has shown he “doesn’t care” about what’s going on and is simply trying to get reelected.

“If he thought that he could be so moderate, he would be doing more,” she said. “He would be voting against a lot of the stuff that goes along, just the whole [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] thing. He’s done nothing with that.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated to include newly released poll data.

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