PA-08: Midterm matchup: Things to watch as 8th District race intensifies

Long before Tuesday’s primary election, proverbial punches had already been thrown in the midterm matchup between Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan and Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti.

Voters paying attention to the 8th Congressional District race may know that the latter accused the former in March of public corruption, blasting Bresnahan over the stock-trading controversy that’s dogged him since last spring despite his long-maintained lack of involvement in his stock trades while serving in Congress.

They may also know that Republicans have accused Cognetti of “shady dealings” involving Fidelity Bank, which she flatly rejects, or that a National Republican Congressional Committee-funded website branded her “Machete Cognetti” following a horrific December machete attack that killed two residents of a downtown Scranton apartment building and critically wounded a third.

And they should certainly brace for more broadsides in what’s likely to become a full-scale political donnybrook in the months ahead.




https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2026/05/19/midterm-matchup-things-to-watch-as-8th-district-race-intensifies/