Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti announced today she will run for Congress next year, potentially setting up one of the premier races in the country against first-term Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan.
“In these short few months of Rob Bresnahan being in Congress, I've seen someone who is saying one thing when he's up here in the district and then doing another,” Cognetti said in an interview in anticipation of the announcement. “The votes that he's taken are going to be detrimental to the people of Scranton and northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Democrats eager to beat Bresnahan
Last November, Bresnahan, 35, who lives in Dallas Twp., Luzerne County, defeated six-term Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Moosic Democrat.
National Democratic-affiliated groups almost immediately set out to win back the district. It is one of four Pennsylvania districts they are targeting to regain control of the U.S. House and thwart President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.
McHale also running
Cognetti, 45, is the second Democrat to formally announce a bid for the 8th Congressional District seat.
She will be heavily favored to defeat the first who announced: Francis McHale.
McHale, 74, another Scranton Democrat, a former state employee and an unsuccessful state representative candidate, announced Aug. 24 that he will run.
Another rumored candidate, Pittston Mayor Michael Lombardo, confirmed recently that he will not run.
Efforts to reach two other rumored potential Democratic candidates, state Rep. Bridget Kosierowski and Drew McLaughlin, a former Luzerne County assistant district attorney, were unsuccessful.
Cognetti also seeking re-election as mayor
Cognetti said she will continue to run for re-election to another four-year term as mayor. That election is Nov. 4.
She faces Republican accounting executive Trish Beynon, 60, and third-party candidate Gene Barrett, 77, a former city councilman. The Democratic primary election is May 19, and the congressional election is Nov. 3, 2026.
Cognetti said she should be re-elected first because “we’ve been doing a great job.”
A news release announcing her congressional candidacy cited her fight against utility rate hikes, more than 100 public events across city neighborhoods, cutting red tape and slashing building permit fees and boosting the formerly distressed city’s finances.
“We have the best team that I could ever hope for in the city,” she said in the interview. “And there's still more that we need to do to make government work better and more efficiently. There's still more red tape we need to cut. I still have more goals of making sure that we are reaching people, that people do know that they can come to the city for help, that they can come to the city with ideas. There's no end to the work, and I very much still want to be doing that work.”
Cognetti said “it’s not abnormal for somebody in office to see a need to fill a gap in another office.”
A balancing act
If she wins re-election, she expects no trouble balancing a run for Congress with her mayoral duties, she said.
'I came into my job as mayor with a 2-week-old baby, and then COVID hit, and we just made it work,” Mayor Paige Cognetti said. “And I'll run for mayor and be mayor and run for Congress, and we'll just make it work. I don't know. I seem to find the hours in the day. And like I said, our team is very, very good at the city.'
Lots of speculation
Many Lackawanna County Democrats have long believed Cognetti would use the mayor’s job as a springboard to higher office. Cognetti did not directly address the speculation when asked, but said she had no plans to run before observing Bresnahan’s behavior as a congressman.
She cited the congressman’s vote for President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which partisan and non-partisan analysts predict will cut Medicaid and food stamps, harm rural hospitals and speed up cuts to Social Security benefits already pending in the early 2030s.
More cuts like the ones Bresnahan voted for will make it tough for Scranton and the region's other municipalities to succeed, she said.
Gutting vs. cutting again
Bresnahan promised he would not gut Medicaid. He said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act preserves the program for people who really need it, eliminates waste, fraud and abuse and blocks benefits for illegal immigrants.
Cognetti said Bresnahan promised people he would not vote to cut Medicaid.
“He didn't have to vote for it,” Cognetti said. “(Rep.) Brian Fitzpatrick, down in Bucks County, didn't vote for it. He's a Republican. There was a path for Rob Bresnahan not to vote for that bill. And he did.”
Knocks Bresnahan's stock trades
In the news release, Cognetti also took a swipe at Bresnahan’s stock trading. As a candidate, he called for a ban on congressional stock trades, but has continued trading stocks as a congressman, saying he’s not consulted on them.
“We won’t sit back as Bresnahan day trades away our future," she said in the news release.
Cuts to flooding help
In the interview, Cognetti also cited Bresnahan’s support for a Trump administration that increased the threshold for getting federal aid to towns that need disaster-damaged roads, bridges and other infrastructure fixed. The administration also cut funding meant to buy out property owners who face repeated flooding, including in Scranton. This time, Cognetti said, the city found other money to buy out residents affected by the September 2023 flooding.
“God forbid, we have the need to buy people out again,” she said. “If there's no help from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), I don't know where we're going to go.”
In April, after the Trump administration eliminated the program and Scranton’s flood buyout money, Bresnahan wrote a letter urging the program’s reinstatement. That hasn’t happened, but Bresnahan has introduced a bill to study buyout efforts. That bill hasn't advanced either.
“Cuts need to be made carefully and thoughtfully, not in the way that they're being made down in D.C. right now,” Cognetti said. “So I feel it's my duty to see if I can win this race in 2026 and get down there and make sure that further cuts aren't happening.”
Cognetti on cutting taxes
Cognetti called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Social Security payroll tax and other tax cuts “good goals,” but said the cuts include wealthy Americans at the expense of necessary programs like Medicaid.
“Everyone wants taxes to go down. That's great,” she said. “(But) you're making people suffer in order to pay for all of those tax cuts. Nobody wants higher taxes. Nobody wants to have waste, fraud and abuse. These goals are shared by most Americans, but it's how we get there. And I disagree with how we (got) there. I think the way that they're trying to get there is really to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy.”
The 8th District, where about 765,000 people live, consists of all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike counties; roughly the eastern half of Luzerne County, including Wilkes-Barre, Pittston and Hazleton; and all of Monroe County, except for Polk and Eldred townships and part of Ross Township.
