With control of the U.S. House on the line in November, Pennsylvania’s swing-district candidates are stocking up their war chests for a critical election — but one Democrat is lagging behind his counterparts.
Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie, who is challenging longtime incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the 1st Congressional District, raised almost $552,300 between April 30 and June 30, according to new campaign finance reports filed Wednesday, putting him at a little over $2 million raised since he launched his campaign in April 2025.
But Harvie’s sum for this two-month period is almost half a million less than Fitzpatrick, and roughly $915,000 on average less than the other Democratic candidates.
Fellow swing–district Democrats Bob Brooks, Paige Cognetti, and Janelle Stelson all outraised the Republican incumbents in the 7th, 8th, and 10th Districts respectively, each gathering more than $1 million during this two-month period, a sign national Democrats say is proof of their strength in these competitive Pennsylvania seats.
The reporting period covers the final weeks before the May 19 primary and the six weeks that followed.
Harvie is seen by Democrats as the party’s best chance in a decade to beat Fitzpatrick, a five-term moderate with a massive fundraising operation, who has raised $6.7 million so far this campaign, bringing in over $1 million this period.
The Bucks County Republican has been tough to beat, thanks to his name recognition and ability to garner support from voters across the political spectrum, but Democrats believe Harvie’s roots in the county, and his electoral record as county commissioner, make him their strongest candidate to date.
(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();
And their outlook on the race hasn’t budged. Democrats believe all four swing district Democrats will be successful in November but understand it will take continued investments, including more money, to get all of them across the finish line.
Bucks County’s 1st Congressional District “is a winnable race, and Democrats should be all in on investing in Harvie so that he can help take back control of Congress,” said Dan McCormick, Harvie’s campaign manager, in a statement.
He also added that Harvie doesn’t “take a dime” of corporate PAC money. McCormick did not comment on the contrast between Harvie’s fundraising and that of his counterparts in the other targeted districts.
“Fitzpatrick sees the same polling we do, that’s why he’s busy lighting his money on fire lying about Bob,” McCormick said.
Fitzpatrick began funding ads against Harvie before the May 19 primary, underscoring the significance of Harvie’s challenge in a year Republicans are expected to lose seats nationally. Fitzpatrick’s campaign spent nearly $2 million between May and June, compared with about $360,000 in spending by Harvie’s campaign.
Both parties are targeting the seat, which includes all of Bucks and a sliver of Montgomery County, as they battle to secure control over the U.S. House.
In a pre-primary report that covered April 1 through 29, Harvie had raised about $107,000, in addition to his stockpile reported Wednesday. Fitzpatrick raised $246,000 during that same period.
The nonpartisan Cook Political report has rated the 1st Congressional District as “likely” Republican, and the three other swing districts are considered toss-ups.
In a high stakes election year — and with popular Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro at the top of the ticket and a sinking approval rating for President Donald Trump — Harvie’s fundraising numbers at this point are mostly on par with the last Democrat to take on Fitzpatrick.
Former challenger Ashley Ehasz, who ran against Fitzpatrick in 2022 and 2024, raised more than $767,000 during this period two years ago, bringing her campaign total to $2.1 million as of June 30, 2024.
Brittany Crampsie, a Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania, said donors may be doing “a little bit of hedging” their spending for Harvie at the moment, waiting to see more information on Shapiro’s poll numbers, Trump’s approval rating, and the national mood before investing more in the 1st District.
“Democratic donors absolutely want to beat Fitzpatrick,” Crampsie said. “We want to control Congress by large margins. But PA-1 is an expensive race. I mean, you might want to be looking at a little bit more information.”
The 1st and 7th Congressional Districts are part of the expensive Philadelphia television market, meaning both Harvie and Brooks will be competing for airtime.
Brooks, who is taking on freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in the Lehigh Valley, has raised $2.3 million over the entire span of his campaign — getting a boost this period after winning a competitive primary — but it’s not too far off from Harvie’s $2 million total haul.
Christopher Nicholas, a GOP consultant who grew up in Bucks County, said that Harvie is not just in a competition against Fitzpatrick, but also with the three other Democratic contenders in Pennsylvania.
“If you’re some official at the DCCC, and you say ‘Let’s see, get me the report on Pennsylvania,’ and you see this, where is Harvie going to be in the rankings? Is he going to be moving up or moving down? I think that’s a pretty easy question to answer,” Nicholas said.
Eli Cousin, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, emphasized that Pennsylvanians are wholeheartedly behind all four candidates who he says are “on the front lines of our path back to the House majority and will shake up a broken Washington in order to put Pennsylvania families first.”
Donors still have a lot of time to realize that Harvie is “the right candidate” and to contribute to TV and other ad spends that will come later this summer into the fall, Crampsie said. Some may already be writing checks to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democratic aligned-issues to support their cause of flipping the House blue.
“Fitzpatrick has won several times after being called the number one target, and stakeholders may be less likely to oppose him publicly and want to put their money into spending for Harvie that’s not necessarily into PAC spending … but I don’t think that it’s a sign that people are not supporting Harvie,” Crampsie said.
But even in the races where Democrats are outraising incumbents victory isn’t guaranteed in districts where Republicans have previously managed to prevail despite a cash disadvantage.
In 2024, Stelson raised about $6.5 million during the entire cycle, roughly $2.1 million more than Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, and still lost. Republicans are hoping Perry can prevail again when they have a rematch in November.
And Republicans see other signs of hope in these races despite Democrats’ momentum. For example, Mackenzie has more than $2.9 million cash on hand, roughly $1.9 million more than Brooks.
“Republicans remain in a strong position to defend our House majority after excellent quarters by our incumbent Members across Pennsylvania,” Reilly Richardson, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.
