Frank: Can Ray Bilger End the GOP’s Winning Streak in the 15th Congressional District?
Ray Bilger is running in the 2026 election for Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District. Photo by Russell Frank
If you were going to design a Democrat who stood a chance of breaking the Republican Party’s stranglehold on Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District, his resume would look like Ray Bilger’s.
Bilger is a Central Pennsylvania native son (Bellefonte), a military veteran (10 years in the Air Force), a gun collector (ask him about his Colt Woodsman pistol) and a former Republican (“My values haven’t changed,” he insists), for starters.
Even hair-wise, he’s got more in common with GOP incumbent Glenn “GT” Thompson than with slicked-back Democrat Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.
I met Bilger at a café last week. When I walked in, he greeted me in Greek, knowing I’d spent time in Greece a few years back. If I spoke Polish or Serbo-Croatian or three or four other languages, he would have greeted me in those, too. (His title in the Air Force was Airborne Cryptologic Lingu…