Janelle Stelson is again.
Democrat and former broadcast journalist lost the Congress race, challenging the US representative Scott Perry (R., Pa.) By just over 1 percentage point last year, and she officially begins the rematch campaign on Monday in the 2026 election.
Perry, a republican, who has been represented by the central district of Pennsylvania since 2012, is a long -term ally of President Donald Trump and former chairman of the Freedom club in Washington. For years, he successfully maintained his place through various challenges, but Stelson gained the next year, which in many respects was brutal for Democrats in Pennsylvania. Her margin in the district was 4 points better than Former vice president of Kamala Harris. “
“It is time for us to have a representative in Congress, who actually listens to us and fights for us,” said 65 -year -old Stelson in a statement declaring her campaign 2026.
“Scott Perry spent over a decade in DC, accepting the voices that hurt us, instead of providing the results – and just sold us again, casting the decisive voting for the greatest Medicaid cuts in history, all, to finance more reductions of billion taxes,” she added. “People here are unwell and tired of the career of politicians such as Scott Perry, cheating on them at every turn.”
Stelson was registered as a republican until 2023 and changed its party before the start of the democratic campaign in 2024. For decades she worked as a partisan journalist in Central Pennsylvania before she decided to apply for office. Political analysts began to perceive the district as more profitable for Democrats after she first announced her plan Perry’s challenge in 2023
She won the basic basic one with 43% of votes for the desired chance of facing Perry and eventually raised more money than he did.
Asset already supported Perry’s re -election in April, calling him “Maga Warrior, which always puts America first” in a post about social truth, the president’s social media platform. The National Republican Congress Committee praised Perry “Growing rush” for 2026
»Read more: Democratic opponent Scott Perry, Janelle Stelson, thinks he can get support from Republicans. She used to be one of them.
Attucting Perry will play a role in the case characteristic in Stelson’scampign, from support for Trump, refusal to Wyborcza and 6 January, with his history of anti -construction views and voting for a recent budget account, which cuts medicaid and food.
Stelson’s campaign will combine more universal democratic messages, such as defense of reproductive rights and social insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, while taking the central tone over the security of the border and supporting law enforcement agencies. He also undertakes for reducing the cost of living, introducing deadlines and honoring veterans.
Her campaign says that “she has no loyalty to paralyzing partisan policy and is ready to bring a fresh perspective to Washington.”
In 2024, 63 -year -old Perry attacked Stelson as far to the left to the district and life outside the district line in the nearby Lancaster.
10. The Congress District includes the Dauphin and part of Cumberland and York. Nearly 45% of the district voters are registered Republicans, and just over 37% of registered democrats are.
The district voted for Trump by 5.2 margin point in 2024, a 1.1-point swing further than in the presidential election in 2020. But parts of the district moved to the left, like the Cumberland, which includes the suburbs of Harrisburg and went 1.1 points further towards the Democratic Presidential Presidential candidate.
The district voted for the Republican Mehmet Oz, who is now working in Trump’s office on Senator John Fetterman in 2022, but also voted for the leftist Governor Josh Shapiro in the center of the democratic governor of Doug Mastriano.
Stelson has received so far support From various democrats in her region, as well as lieutenant Austin Davis, who is part of the recent initiative to broaden the tactics of sending messages of the Democratic Party.
She was also supported by a handful of former republican public officials, including a former US representative Denver Riggleman from Virginia, who worked as an advisor to the home selection committee, which examined the attack on January 6 at Kapitool.
Shapiro, who won the Perry district in 2022, is not mentioned with other endorsers, but is to appear with Stelson at the party this week.
From the very beginning Stelson is his campaign against Perry, which she also did. But it is too early to say for sure what a democratic basic field will look like.
Mike O’Brien, a veteran who took second place last year in Stelson with about 23% of votes, is currently running for the Cumberland Valley school council and supports Stelson in the Congress race.
Commissioner of the Function Dauphin Justin Douglas, a progressive pastor, announced last week that he was considering applying for a congress headquarters and gathered an explore committee. Douglas was elected in 2023, for the first time for over a century, turning the poviat committee.
“There is a lot of unfinished business in Dauphin, I won’t lie,” said Douglas Wdal. “I want to still see this job. I think that at federal level I will have the opportunity to continue this job.”
