DALLAS — In an arena littered with President Donald Trump’s image — from the photos that lined the concourse to the gift shops selling merch depicting the president as a cowboy — one of Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable Republican lawmakers this fall went all-in.
U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, running for reelection in a Scranton-based district that is one of the most competitive in the nation, addressed the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention during its opening night on Wednesday.
His decision to attend “Trump-a-palooza” (as the RNC has described it) at all was notable. Some Republicans in tight races decided to stay away out of concerns of associating themselves with a president with low approval ratings. U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks), for example, is not attending and has distanced himself from parts of Trump’s agenda.
Bresnahan promoted Trump’s signature tax policy in a brief speech focused on supporting workers and their families.
“Tax relief matters,” Bresnahan told hundreds of party loyalists at the American Airlines Arena in a speech that followed Ken Paxton, the controversial Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidate in Texas. “In Northeastern Pennsylvania, we work until the job is done. And those extra hours should mean more money in your pocket.”
Democrats have used Bresnahan’s vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, as a wedge against Bresnahan and other vulnerable Republicans. But Bresnahan contended the income tax cuts and other policies in the legislation, like no tax on tips, are paying dividends for families.
Two other Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers in similar situations, U.S. Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R., Lehigh) and Scott Perry (R., York), are also attending the two-day convention, with Mackenzie slated to speak Thursday.
Bresnahan spoke to a somewhat sparse crowd compared with Republican National Conventions during presidential election years, which served as a model for the novel midterm convention this year as the party looks to energize its base of voters while seeking to defend narrow majorities in the House and Senate.
Delegates, clustered by state on the convention floor, cheered and waved signs reading “Keep the majority” and “Republicans are fixing Democrats’ mess.” The stands in the roughly 19,000-person arena remained largely empty, at least for the first few hours before Trump’s speech.
Merchandise shops were packed with Trump’s typical MAGA merchandise, copies of his son Eric Trump’s book, Under Siege, and new mugs and shirts showing Trump on a horse in cowboy gear. Red, white, blue, and — in an unmistakable nod toward the president — gold balloons waited in the rafters for the grand finale on Thursday.
“I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot, just one more time,” Trump told the cheering crowd in prime time, noting there were about 35 “swing” races the party was prioritizing.
About 1,500 miles away, in another town called Dallas, one of Bresnahan’s constituents hatched a plan to tune in.
On the opening night of the annual Luzerne County Fair — in a booth yards from deep-fried Oreos, flying elephant kiddie rides, and life-size cardboard cutouts of Abraham Lincoln, Donald Trump, and Jesus — Dwayne McDavitt fiddled with his tablet to see if he could stream the convention.
The symmetry of Dallas, Texas, and Dallas, Pa., was “too good to pass up,” said McDavitt, the head of a conservative group called Thunder and Liberty PAC and also the Pennsylvania chapter of Bikers For Trump.
He said he supports Bresnahan, who lives in Luzerne County, over Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, the Democratic nominee.
“He shares our values of faith, family, and freedom — meaning free and fair elections,” McDavitt said.
Interviews with other voters in the district on Wednesday underscored the potentially risky nature of Bresnahan’s leaning into the Trump administration.
Malcolm Mabry, 28, of Wilkes-Barre, said he had been victimized by a “Trump bait and switch” as a Republican who voted for the president two years ago. He picked Trump, believing that better policing of the Southern border was paramount.
And while Trump has been using ICE to “grab up people,” as he said, Mabry said much of what else the president promised, like lowering prices and avoiding war, has not occurred.
“Trump just said what he had to, to get into office,” said Mabry, who was unaware of the convention happening at the same time.
A campaign about workers and affordability
Bresnahan won his seat by less than 2 percentage points in 2024 to take down a six-term Democrat in the northeast corner of the state. Trump won the district by more than 8 percentage points.
His Democratic challenger, Cognetti, has garnered high-profile supporters like Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is also up for election, and she has repeatedly targeted Bresnahan for trading stocks while in office despite his previous statements that he would not do so.
Bresnahan, the former head of a family-run electrical contracting business, has made jobs and the workforce a top focus in his campaign and in his brief congressional career.
On a few occasions, he has broken with House Republican leaders to support bills that would strengthen union protections for federal workers. He has said that he hopes his party changes tactics to support those kinds of bills.
“We need the unions that have trained generations of some of the most skilled workers in American history,” Bresnahan said onstage Wednesday. “We have those workers in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and communities across this country are ready for the same opportunity.”
Bresnahan has racked up a series of union endorsements that are otherwise rare for Republicans. While major unions like the AFL-CIO and the Pennsylvania State Education Association have backed Cognetti, he has won support from organizations like the American Federation of Government Employees and the Teamsters — groups that, in a region with a long history of union issues, could make a difference in a close race.
In his speech, Bresnahan talked generally about supporting workers and manufacturing in the U.S. He spoke about tax policies that put “more money in your pocket” and help “build communities where people can stay, raise a family, and build a life.”
U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.), in a speech that was introduced with an unusual video featuring U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), also spoke about Trump’s push to improve economic indicators.
They and other speakers did not address other affordability issues that Democrats have seized on and that polls show voters have top-of-mind heading into early voting.
Trump has mocked the Democratic attacks on the issue as a hoax, including in a speech in Bresnahan’s district last year. But it is a message, and a reality, that has resonated with voters in Pennsylvania, according to polls and interviews.
“I’m on a fixed income,” Bill Dudeck, 83, of Nanticoke in Luzerne County, said Wednesday. “But under Trump, gas, groceries, and utilities are skyrocketing.”
Trump promised a lower cost of living, “but now all our money is out the window,” said Dudeck, a Democrat and former construction worker in Bresnahan’s district.
Bresnahan, whose campaign said earlier this week that he was looking forward to bringing “NEPA to the national stage,” appeared onstage instead with a sheet metal worker and mother of seven from Baltimore.
Cognetti’s campaign noted the pairing in a comment Wednesday that criticized Bresnahan, in part, for trading stocks in office.
“That’s probably why he didn’t have a Pennsylvanian on stage with him tonight,” a Cognetti campaign spokesperson said in a statement. “His speech is just more empty words to try and distract from his broken promises.”
Nora Pruitt, who joined Bresnahan, had previously been recognized by the White House as a beneficiary of Trump’s second term. Listed on the agenda as an “everyday American, factory worker, working mother and manufacturing success story,” Pruitt said “things have really improved for our family since President Trump returned to office.”
“We are so grateful President Trump and Republicans in Congress like Congressman Bresnahan vote for families like ours,” she said.
