Robert Bresnahan

Republican Rob Bresnahan flipped the Northeastern Pa. seat two years ago in a Trump-led wave. He lost it amid a backlash to the president.

Democrat Paige Cognetti defeated freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan on Tuesday to flip a critical Pennsylvania swing district in a region where President Donald Trump saw some of his strongest gains in the state two years ago.

The result — in a race that had been considered a “toss-up” for months and where polls showed the Democrat leading in the final weeks — is a sizable victory for Democrats who hoped to reclaim a seat they lost in 2024 and that would help ensure their control of the U.S. House for the final half of Trump’s term.

Cognetti, the 46-year-old mayor of Scranton, ran a robust campaign that focused relentlessly on Bresnahan’s stock trading in office. She also highlighted his support for some of the most controversial parts of Trump’s agenda, like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut future Medicaid spending and food assistance, and the war in Iran.

Bresnahan, a 36-year-old former head of his family’s electrical contracting business in Luzerne County, had defeated a five-term Democratic incumbent by less than 2 percentage points in 2024.

His campaign for a second term focused heavily on his work to secure federal funds for the district, support more popular GOP economic wins — tax cuts, primarily — and attacks on Cognetti for not having the same deep local roots as him. The Democrat grew up in Oregon and previously lived in Washington and New York.

“Home is where you choose to serve,” Cognetti said during her victory speech Tuesday, recounting how she came to Scranton while working in politics but became devoted to city after meeting her husband.

She moved to Scranton in 2016 and became its mayor in a 2019 special election after a local corruption scandal, which resulted in her predecessor going to prison.

“She came in and turned that around and that is what we need at the federal level,” said Stacy Miller, 48, a lifelong Scranton resident who voted for the mayor.

An early entry into the race, Cognetti did not face any challengers in the Democratic primary and became one of the most prolific fundraisers out of any candidates for Congress in Pennsylvania this year.

By winning the 8th Congressional District, she put herself among a national cohort of Democratic candidates to win relatively Trump-friendly districts amid the president’s sinking approval ratings.

“I hope it’s a little bit of a fear put into him,” Bernard Ott, a 76-year-old Scranton voter, said of the president on the prospect of Democratic control of the House.

Trump won the district — which covers all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike Counties, as well as parts of Luzerne and Monroe Counties — by 8.5 percentage points in 2024, the most of any of Pennsylvania’s four competitive districts this year.

But only 43% approved and 57% disapproved of his performance in office in a recent Inquirer/New York Times/Siena University poll, which also showed Cognetti leading Bresnahan, 51% to 46%, among likely voters.

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