With only four weeks until Election Day, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson swung into Northeast Pennsylvania Tuesday for a third time this year to back U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s reelection.
The latest visit further underscored Republicans’ concern about keeping the 8th Congressional District seat out of Democratic hands with Johnson unloading on Democrats.
The Louisiana Republican portrayed the Democratic Party as growing full of “crazy” ideas that will lead the nation into socialism and communism and the elimination of the U.S. Senate, among other things.
“They want one unicameral body, the House, to run everything,” Johnson claimed before about 100 Bresnahan supporters inside a garage at DeAngelo Contracting Services in Hazleton.
“Why? Because they've calculated that over two or three (election) cycles they can elect enough Marxist, communist ideologues like themselves, and they can take over the means of production. Okay? No more small business owners, no more private property ownership. This is dangerous stuff. It is anti-American, and we must defeat them.”
Bresnahan faces Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a Democrat, who has never proposed eliminating the U.S. Senate or ending small business or private property ownership. Johnson did not mention Cognetti by name.
A pivotal race
The Bresnahan-Cognetti contest represents one of four hot congressional races in Pennsylvania that Democrats think can help them retain House control. Johnson campaigned for Republican incumbents in all of them Tuesday.
His visit to Hazleton followed a private excursion into Luzerne County on Friday by House Republican Leader Steve Scalise.
Scalise, who campaigned twice here for Bresnahan two years ago, quietly visited a Plains Twp. gun shop in Luzerne County, according to Bresnahan’s social media.
Johnson previously visited Moosic in Lackawanna County on April 10 for a private fundraiser. He returned Aug. 19 for a fundraiser and news conference in Wilkes-Barre.
All the visits demonstrate Republicans’ concern about protecting Bresnahan, a piece of their slender House majority.
“Rob is a very effective member of Congress, okay?” Johnson said. “He represents you very well, very well. And we have the Democrats fit to be tied because we flipped a blue seat to red two years ago, and that means he's got a big target on his back because he's very, very good at what he does.”
Johnson: Majority depends on 22 races
Johnson said he expects the House majority to come down to about 22 races nationwide.
“This one's rated in those top races because your first (reelection campaign) is the most important and often the most difficult one,” he said of the Bresnahan-Cognetti race.
Only twice in 90 years has a sitting president’s party picked up seats in a midterm election, he pointed out.
“And the president asks me all the time, ‘Mike, why is that?’” Johnson said, imitating President Donald Trump’s voice and drawing laughter. “Okay, the answer is, sir. Because angry people vote, right? And you think about it: when a president wins the White House, okay, the other team's upset about it, so they send out all their troops, and they take House seats away from the president two years later. That's not going to happen this time.”
Bresnahan rips Cognetti
Bresnahan painted Cognetti as an Oregon native, who favors defunding police, raised taxes and allowed crime in Scranton to get “out of control.”
“And she thinks we should give her a promotion, and not only ... should we give her a promotion, we're paying her for that promotion because as she was running for mayor, she was also running for Congress,” he said.
Cognetti has said she does not favor defunding police and raised police spending as mayor and raised taxes only modestly to keep Scranton from returning to financial distress, a status she ended.
Federal and state statistics mostly show crime on the decline in Scranton, though homicides and other violent crimes have occasionally spiked during her tenure.
In a statement, Cognetti accused Johnson of running "a pro-war, anti-union, anti-AI regulation Congress that has costs soaring, endangered our service members, and gutted our health care system."
"Rob Bresnahan’s allegiance to Johnson shows us, again, that he's perfectly fine with the policies coming out of Washington that are hurting our community," Cognetti said.
"Folks in our region and throughout the nation are begging for reform. We know that billionaires and big corporations are running the show, and Johnson and Bresnahan are their willing partners," she said. "We deserve better."
