Guy Reschenthaler

Former FBI special agent Alan Bradstock is looking to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler in Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional District.

Reschenthaler, a Republican from Peters, is in his fourth term representing the district that includes all of Fayette, Washington and Greene counties and parts of Westmoreland, Indiana and Somerset counties. About half of the district’s registered voters are Republicans, and 33% are Democrats.

Bradstock, a Democrat from Fayette County’s Dunbar Township, has never previously run for public office but is convinced voters are ready for a change.

Reschenthaler, he said, is rarely seen in the district.

“I hear a lot of people complain — even Republicans — that he doesn’t come around or do town halls and that he’s not listening to the constituents,” Bradstock told TribLive during an interview at his Greensburg campaign office.

Reschenthaler did not respond to multiple interview requests made to his campaign and legislative offices.

Reschenthaler, 42, serves as chief deputy whip for the Republican caucus in Washington and sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee, which oversees all discretionary spending by the federal government and reviews how federal tax money is spent.

This year, he secured nearly $200 million in federal earmarks for government and nonprofit projects, ranking second-most in the House.

After being elected to Congress by nearly 16 percentage points in 2018, Reschenthaler was reelected by a roughly 2-to-1 margin in 2020 and 2024 and was unopposed in 2022.

Bradstock said he’s looking to bring different ideas to Congress.

“I look at it as the partisan divide is the issue we have to tackle first because we can’t effectively tackle anything big until we start working together and getting back to compromising, as hard as that may be for a lot of people to imagine,” Bradstock said.

“You have to start by talking to (Republicans) and listening to them and being respectful towards them and building relationships, because it’s just like everything else in life: It starts with a relationship. I’m really good at finding places where we agree, so I’ll be looking for places where Republicans and I can agree,” he added.

Bradstock said he wants to grow local economies through investments, and he recently endorsed a plan for what he called “primary healthcare,” which provides government funding for basic preventive care for citizens. It’s a compromise between the private healthcare model currently in place and Democratic-sponsored Medicare-for-all proposals offering free healthcare, he said.

“Going straight from where we are to universal has been tried by the Clintons, and it would be a major change. This would be much less of a change. I believe that we need to do it incrementally, and this is the smart first step,” said Bradstock, who describes himself as a moderate Democrat.

Bradstock grew up in Donora and served in the military before working in the private sector as an accountant and then becoming an FBI special agent. He retired in 2019.

Reschenthaler also is a military veteran, having served as a Navy lawyer. He later served as a district judge in Allegheny County and as a state senator before moving to Congress.

Reschenthaler has a significant fundraising advantage. According to the most recent Federal Elections Commission filings, political action committees associated with Reschenthaler’s campaign have raised more than $4.2 million since the start of last year. As of June 30, his campaign had more than $990,000 in available cash.

Through the end of June, Bradstock’s campaign had raised about $201,000 and had just less than $35,000 in available cash.

Bradstock took a step back from his campaign in the spring after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He has undergone radiation treatment that is expected to be completed by the end of August, he said.