Opposing campaign TV commercials portray U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan and Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti as friends of the wealthy, but he’s a lot wealthier than she is.
Though both live well above federal poverty levels, the congressman’s wealth ranks many times larger.
Bresnahan's money
Bresnahan, 36, a Republican who lives in Dallas Twp., Luzerne County, earned his wealth by inheriting some of it, but also, by his own account, taking over, rescuing and vastly expanding, then selling off his family’s construction company. He invested in a wide variety of stocks, bonds and other assets.
His financial disclosure form for 2025, his first year in Congress, shows investments valued at between $16,409,621 and $59,555,000. That includes retirement accounts belonging to his wife, Chelsea, and valued at between $4,004 and $60,000.
The form reports interest, capital gains and dividend income of $3,327,285 to $15,869,300, not including his $ 174,000-a-year congressional salary. A campaign spokesman said Bresnahan donates his entire congressional salary to the Luzerne Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization. Bresnahan also owns a helicopter, which House Ethics rules say he does not have to disclose as long as it’s for personal use. His predecessor, Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Democrat, owned a small plane.
In a recent interview, Bresnahan talked about his upbringing.
“I don't have a political science degree. I have a business administration degree from the University of Scranton, but I came from the real world,” he said. “I developed distressed properties in downtown Pittston. I came into my family business at a very young age, but I came from the real world, and I had Democrats, I had Republicans, I had union, I had non-union, different employees and relationships, and we were all always able to put our hat on what was best for the entity, best for the company, and best foot forward for whatever we were advocating for.”
Bresnahan spokesperson Samantha Bullock contrasted his background with Cognetti’s.
“There’s a big difference between Rep. Bresnahan growing up in a working-class family with deep union ties and running a business before coming to Washington and building wealth like Paige Cognetti did through Goldman Sachs and two decades serving the Democrat Machine of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and herself,” Bullock said in an email when asked for comment on both candidates’ finances. “Congress is meant to be a representation of people at all walks of life, and real-life experience and private sector success is always a positive to bring to the halls of Congress.”
Cognetti's money
On her latest disclosure form, Cognetti, 46, a Democrat and leader of Lackawanna County’s largest municipality, reports investments valued at between $1,446,046 and $2,195,000. At least $1 million of both numbers comes from the estimated value of her husband Ryan’s grocery and sandwich shop, Caravia Foods, in South Abington Twp., Lackawanna County.
The mayor listed 2025 income — interest, her city salary and Caravia income — totaling between $182,503 and $1,095,000. The grocery/sandwich shop makes up the bulk of that — $100,001 to $1 million. Removing that leaves Cognetti’s personal income at $82,502 to $95,000 – her $75,000 mayoral salary plus interest in two bank accounts. The salary for Scranton mayor rose to $95,000 this year, but Cognetti declined the raise.
“Paige gets around in a 2019 Ford Edge that she shares with her mother, her husband owns a local small business, and she's still paying off her student loans,” Cognetti campaign spokesperson Emma Mustion wrote in an email. “They are proudly raising their two young kids in Scranton. Paige believes that our government should work as hard as the people it serves, and every decision Paige has made as mayor has been with the goal of benefiting the people — never herself.”
Inexactitude in reporting
The exact values of the candidates’ holdings aren’t publicly known because federal law requires only reporting asset values in ranges — $1 to $1,000, $1,001 to $2,500, $2,501 to $5,000, $5,001 to $15,000 and $15,001 to $50,000, for example.
For income, reporting is in ranges of $1 to $200, $201 to $1,000, $1,001 to $2,500, $2,501 to $5,000, $5,001 to $15,000, $15,001 to $50,000, $50,001 to $100,000, $100,001 to $250,000, for example.
So, Bresnahan’s controversial May 2025 sales of four Medicaid-related stock companies a week before a vote expected to slash Medicaid — often misquoted as valued at $130,000 — actually had a sale value of as little as $32,004 to as much as $130,000. Both values represented a tiny fraction of his financial holdings at the time and were among many stock trades made at the same time.
“I had to look up last Thursday to figure out what Centene actually did,” he said in July 2025, referring to one of the Medicaid-related companies.
Bresnahan denies insider trading
Bresnahan has repeatedly and vehemently denied trading on insider information — which is illegal — or having anything to do with his stock trades. He leaves trades up to his financial advisors and doesn’t tell them what stocks to buy or sell, he says.
Mustion said Cognetti has no issue with Bresnahan’s wealth.
“The issue is Bresnahan using his seat to trade millions of dollars worth of stocks while having access to information and power that ordinary Americans do not have as he votes to gut health care and raise costs for Northeastern Pennsylvanians. If someone wants to day-trade as a private citizen, Paige wishes them the best. But trading on your votes as a sitting member of Congress is public corruption, and it’s exactly why people don’t trust government.”
No one has produced evidence that Bresnahan personally traded stocks based on insider information.
Though he called for a ban on congressional stock trading as a candidate, Bresnahan was one of Congress’ most prolific stock traders last year. Initially, he advocated for allowing members of Congress to put their investments in blind trusts. Amid the uproar over this stock trading, he stopped trading stocks altogether, signed onto a move to force a vote on banning stock trades, then voted in July for a stock trading ban.
The ban bill, which passed the House but not the Senate, would prohibit members of Congress and their immediate families from buying new stocks or derivatives and require a week or two weeks public notice of any stock sale.
One TV commercial attacking Cognetti’s work for Goldman Sachs cites a May 2020 New York Times story about the bank foreclosing on mortgages on homes whose owners the bank agreed to help.
Cognetti and Goldman Sachs
Cognetti, who has a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University, worked in Goldman Sachs’ investment management division from 2014 to 2016, according to her LinkedIn, which the commercial cites. That was just before she moved to Scranton.
“I am one of those people for good or for bad, I have to be passionate about what I’m doing,” Cognetti said in a 2020 Scranton Times-Tribune newspaper story. “Goldman was an excellent company. I learned a lot about investing, I learned a lot about sales, corporate governance ... But money being the goal is just not who I am.”
Bresnahan owns between $15,001 and $50,000 of Goldman Sachs stock that earned him a dividend of between $201 and $1,000 last year, according to his disclosure form.
