Democrats won two key battleground races for the U.S. House on Nov. 9 and appeared poised to win a third as the vote counting continues.
Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright defeated Trump-endorsed business owner Jim Bognet in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District.
Attorney and Iraq War veteran Chris Deluzio, a Democrat, defeated former local township commissioner Jeremy Shaffer, a Republican, in the state’s 17th Congressional District.
And in the state’s 7th Congressional District, incumbent Democratic Rep. Susan Wild held a 1.6 percent lead over Republican nominee Lisa Scheller with more than 95 percent of the votes counted.
Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District
Nestled in the Rust Belt of northeast Pennsylvania, where President Joe Biden was born, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre are cities once dominated by Democrats. But times have changed, and Republicans felt confident that Bognet would unseat Cartwright.
The district supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, but Cartwright won in those years.
Bognet won the Republican primary in 2020 but lost to Cartwright in the general election by around 12,200 votes. It was Cartwright’s closest race since he was first elected in 2012.
Conditions were different then. Biden defeated Trump, but the economy was flourishing and gas was under $2 a gallon.
A native of Hazleton, which is part of the 8th District, Bognet served as an appointee to the U.S. Export-Import Bank during the Trump administration. Trump endorsed Bognet in May.
Pennsylvania 17th Congressional District
Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb left his seat representing Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District to run for the U.S. Senate in a race he ultimately lost to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the Democratic primary.
Deluzio and Shaffer decisively won their respective primaries. Deluzio defeated Sean Meloy by almost 27 percentage points, while Shaffer defeated the closest opponent by more than 34 percent.
Shaffer was added to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) “Young Guns” program, which is led by House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and provides candidates with “the tools they need” to win.
Deluzio was part of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue program, which provides candidates considered “top-tier” with organizational and fundraising support.
The 17th district is located in western Pennsylvania and includes Beaver County and a broad portion of Allegheny County in suburban Pittsburgh. Redistricting has made it friendlier to Democrats.
Deluzio graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and served as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy, including a tour in Iraq.
When he returned, Deluzio earned a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington and joined the Brennan Center for Justice, working on the Voting Rights and Election Security teams.
He is now the policy director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security.
Shaffer earned a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina.
He served as Ross Township commissioner in suburban Pittsburgh and is the founder of a company that provides software to inspect bridges, roads, and other infrastructure.
Shaffer added that he is conservative but “I don’t necessarily hold to a view because it’s what my party says.” He added that “I would have probably been one of the few Republican votes” for President Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Shaffer ran for state Senate in 2018 and lost by a slim margin in the general election.
Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District
An attorney who in 2015 became the first woman to be appointed solicitor of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Wild was elected as the first woman to represent the 7th Congressional District in 2018.
Wild narrowly defeated Scheller in 2020—by 3.8 percentage points.
Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District is based in the Lehigh Valley. Before the district’s boundaries changed after the 2020 Census, President Joe Biden registered a 5-percentage point margin of victory over President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
Redistricting after the 2020 Census has made the district more favorable to Republicans.
The 7th Congressional District spans Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon counties along with a small part of Monroe County.
Carbon County, which Trump won with 65 percent of the vote in 2020, was added to the congressional district, while most of Monroe County, where Trump received just 44 percent support in 2020, was removed.
With record-high inflation, the circumstances are different this year compared to 2020, when Wild defeated Scheller, 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent.
Wild was named to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee “Frontline” program, which provides extra resources and support to vulnerable candidates.
A former Lehigh County Commissioner, Scheller is outspoken in opposing critical race theory and allowing transgenders to compete in girls’ sports. She supports election integrity and wouldn’t vote to codify Roe v. Wade into law, although she does believe in exemptions for abortions in cases of rape or incest.
Wild touts her rating by the independent organization The Lugar Center as one of the most bipartisan members in Congress, but congressional voting records indicate that she has agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Joe Biden 100 percent of the time on votes in the 117th Congress (2021–22).
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