Tracy Pawelski’s Republican bona fides are impressive.
The 63-year-old northern York County resident worked for former Republican U.S. Rep. George Gekas, who represented the district that included Harrisburg for two decades. Next, she worked for the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group of 35 House Republicans founded by former Speaker Newt Gingrich. During the first Bush administration, she joined the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Later, she was on the staff of former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Outside of professional life, she volunteered for various Republican candidates, including former Sen. Rick Santorum.
“Lots of Lincoln Day dinners,” Pawelski remembered. “My roots in the Republican Party run deep.”
Pawelski is a Republican because it was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. For her, the GOP stood for ethics and the rule of law.
So what was she doing standing behind a podium on the edge of a farm field, shoulder to shoulder with Democratic congressional candidate Janelle Stelson?
“I don’t recognize this Republican Party,” said Pawelski, former chair of the Monaghan Township Board of Supervisors and an author of children’s books.
Pawelski remembers being concerned with the tone of some GOP colleagues during the days of Gingrich’s “New Moral Majority” in the ’90s.
Now, three decades later, those days seem quaint to her.
“It’s time to send the playground bullies and obstructionists home,” she said. “We cannot squander this opportunity to send them a message.”
The fact that her congressman and neighbor, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, is closely allied with Trump and mimics Trump’s rhetoric is what brought her to a small farm in northern York County to speak on behalf of Stelson at an event for Republicans who support the former WGAL news anchor in her effort to oust Perry from Congress.
Pawelski represents the kind of voter Stelson needs to attract if she is to unseat the seven-term Republican, a feat she came within 5,133 votes of achieving in the last 10th District Congressional election.
And it’s a reality not lost on the Stelson campaign.
“I think Republicans have some good ideas,” Stelson said in one recent campaign ad appearing on TV and streaming services. Stelson herself is a former Republican who switched her party affiliation on her voter registration in January 2023.
For some Republicans at least, the admiration appears mutual, and they’re working to avoid a repeat of Stelson’s narrow loss two years ago.
“That was 2024,” former U.S. Rep. James Greenwood, a Republican who represented Pennsylvania’s Eighth District for 12 years, said at the Sept. 23 campaign event. “This year is different.”
A toss-up
It is different.
For the first time in decades, the 10th District, which includes most of York County, may be represented by a Democrat in 2027. The last time the district elected a Democrat was in 1964, when Neiman Craley defeated incumbent Republican George Goodling in a national landslide for Democrats, sparked by the nation’s fear and loathing of conservative Republican candidate Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who lost in a landslide to Democratic incumbent Lyndon Johnson. (Goodling took the seat back two years later.)
This year, the presidency is not on the ballot, but Trump may as well be. With his approval ratings hovering in the 30 percent range – it’s below 30 percent for his handling of the economy in some polls – his unpopularity may have a significant effect on Congressional races, particularly among his most staunch supporters in Congress, a group that includes Perry.
In 2024, Stelson lost to Perry by 5,133 votes, a margin of about 1.5 percent. (Trump won the district by 5.2 percentage points.)
The race is expected to be close. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has deemed the race to be a toss-up. An aggregate of polls compiled by Pollmax shows Stelson with a very slight, half-a-percentage-point lead.
A September poll by Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Opinion Research has Stelson leading Perry, 47 percent to 44 percent, well within the margin of error.
The race has attracted national attention. The national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted the race and has provided significant resources, viewing it as key to determining party control of Congress. Perry’s campaign has received support from conservative political action committees, which are running ads attacking Stelson.
The race is expected to be the most expensive Congressional race in Pennsylvania, and one of the most expensive in the country, with the candidates having raised more than $11 million between them. Stelson, according to the last filings with the Federal Election Commission, has outraised Perry, $6.4 million to Perry’s $5.2 million in the first six months of this year.
‘It’s the economy, stupid’
Democratic political operative James Carville is famous for his Bartlett’s quality quote summarizing his approach to politics: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
And for sure, the primary issue in the Stelson-Perry race is the economy and the skyrocketing cost of living. The Franklin & Marshall poll contained some bad findings for Perry. Forty-five percent of those polled in the district reported that they are worse off financially now compared to a year ago. More voters, by a margin of 24 percentage points, believed that the Democrats could handle the economy better than Republicans. Fifty-nine percent reported that Trump’s policies have hurt them and only 27 percent approved of Trump’s job performance.
Since Perry has been a staunch supporter of Trump and his policies, those numbers do not bode well for his campaign. “The President’s low job approval ratings and voters’ concerns about the economy are creating significant headwinds for Republican candidates,” Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research, wrote in the poll’s summary.
The state of the economy, of course, is the result of a multitude of factors, but in this race, Trump’s policies and actions are playing a large role in the perception that the economy is in terrible shape.
And they took center stage at Stelson’s Sept. 23 event in York Haven, during which former Republican members of Congress and voters rallied to show support for the Democrat.
‘Bad at his job’
The event was held at the edge of a field, next to a stable that was the home of a significantly sway-backed donkey, whose presence prompted one participant to wisecrack, “Look, Scott Perry’s here. That’s an ass, right?”
In a district that leans heavily Republican, Stelson knows she has to attract Republican voters to win. Noting that she lost to Perry by 5,133 votes in 2024, she joked that she needs to get 5,134 Republican votes.
At the event, Stelson, attired casually in a black sweater, jeans and black boots, slammed Perry for supporting the policies that have increased the cost of living. She said, “The votes our Congressman Scott Perry has taken have made everything cost more: health care, utilities, housing, gas. Families are doing the math every month and coming up short, and they’re doing it while their congressman is nowhere to be found.”
Specifically, she cited his support for the war in Iran, which has led to a spike in fuel prices, with gas hitting about $4.60 a gallon and diesel nearing $7 a gallon. Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to declare war and can use that power to stop the war in Iran, something she pledged to do if elected.
She also slammed Perry’s support of “Trump’s tariff taxes,” which she said have increased the cost of everything from cars to groceries.
Greenwood, a Republican who represented Bucks County and Philadelphia’s northern suburbs in Congress from 1993 until 2005, was baffled by Perry’s support of tariffs.
“We Republican reformers supported fair trade,” he said at the event. “We opposed irrational tariffs that were paid by working families and consumers here in the 10th district, raising the price of groceries, clothing, appliances, furniture, cars, and housing, and everything else. Scott Perry has consistently voted against efforts to block or constrain presidential tariff powers. He defends them.”
Speakers at the event said, over and over again, that Perry was “out of touch” and favored the interests of corporations and his donors over those of his constituents.
Stelson said, “Time and again, he’s been the only member of Congress from Pennsylvania, Democrat or Republican, to vote against things almost all of us agree on, like housing homeless veterans, protecting firefighters from toxic chemicals in their gear, and funding local police departments. When you are the single ‘no’ vote on taking care of veterans, firefighters, and police, that’s when we know you are out of touch.”
Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who served on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, and a former colleague of Perry, assault on the Capitol, put more bluntly.
“Scott Perry is not good at his job,” he said.
He characterized Perry as “a corrosive force in Congress.” He said Perry, as a member and leader of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, “was always against compromise. … I think a significant amount of the problems that we’re facing today are due in no small part to Perry.”
Perry responds
The day after the event, in response to a request for comment and questions from the York Daily Record, Perry, a retired Army brigadier general, emailed a 635-word statement in response to Stelson’s claims and assertions.
On tariffs, he wrote, “Democrats have exported our jobs and industries for the past 50 years. We can’t export our tax, labor, and regulatory policies, so we must level the playing field; it’s the only way to bring jobs home – and it doesn’t happen overnight.”
He claimed that Stelson “supports continuing to outsource and export all our jobs, skilled labor, opportunities, and our future to Southeast Asia and Mexico – because that’s what Democrats and the establishment have done for the last 50 years.”
Regarding his support of the Iran war, he wrote, “Iran has been killing Americans for 50 years. Maybe Stelson should remember that rather than standing with terrorists who chant ‘Death to America’ and threaten our nuclear annihilation. After a nuclear strike, we don’t get the luxury of saying, ‘now we’re going to deal with this’ – it is too late then.”
He also criticized Stelson’s stance on taxes, writing that she apparently “likes our current tax system that punishes hardworking families while billionaires use all the loopholes to not pay taxes.”
In one of Stelson’s ads, she claims Perry supports a 30 percent national sales tax. Perry said that’s not true, that he has co-sponsored a flat tax bill that would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service and all other federal taxes.
On health care, he called Obamacare – the Affordable Care Act – an “abject failure” that “every Democrat owns.” He wrote, “No Republican voted for it, and Stelson wants it to continue!” He wrote that “American families deserve an affordable healthcare system that offers them choice, transparency, and flexibility; what Stelson supports does just the opposite.”
P, “Stelson’s concerns about the cost of living are as fake as she is. There’s no one from Pennsylvania – certainly not one Democrat – who’s fought to reduce spending and increase affordability more than Scott Perry.”
He wrote, “The difference between us can’t be clearer: I voted to end taxes on tips and overtime, cut taxes for Seniors, expand the Child Tax Credit, and stopped forcing you to pay for the least reliable and most expensive energy on the planet. Stelson said herself that she would’ve voted no on that legislation.”
Finally, he wrote, “And Stelson preaching about loyalty? That’s rich – since she doesn’t live in the district, has continually lied about it, and is paying for her campaign with dark, foreign money from those who have no interest in central Pa., don’t live here, and are never coming here. The only loyalty I’ve ever sworn to anything or anyone was to our Constitution and its defense from all enemies – foreign and domestic – while I’ve served in public office and when I served our Nation for 40 years in the military, which was the greatest privilege of my life – the sacrifices of which Stelson knows nothing.”
He concluded, “Stelson is a fake and a liar, and for her to insinuate that my allegiance is anywhere else but to our Nation is ignorant, insulting, and beneath the dignity of the office she seeks.”
‘Scott Perry has done nothing but hurt me’
Perry, in his statement, did not address the remarks about his support of Trump. Among Republican voters at the event, they said that is among the issues that prompted them to support Stelson.
One, Bob Sprague, an 84-year-old Navy veteran who’s originally from Long Island, said Perry’s involvement in Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection was among the factors in his decision to oppose Perry. A lifelong Republican, he described Perry’s conduct as “appalling” and “despicable.”
“It’s scary that he’s afraid to stand up and speak up for what’s right,” Sprague said.
Scott Trompeter, a 61-year-old Air Force veteran and lifelong Republican from Hershey, voted for Trump twice, in 2016 and 2020 because “I wanted change in Washington. It was out of control, and I wanted somebody who wasn’t a politician.”
But now, he has soured on Trump. Rising costs, the war in Iran and the fact that “you can’t turn him off and something news happens every day” that usually isn’t very good led him to reconsider things.
“Scott Perry has done nothing but hurt me and my community,” Trompeter said, citing Perry’s record of supporting policies that have led to higher prices for everything from groceries to gas.
Trompeter, who gets by on Social Security disability payments and Veterans Administration benefits, believes that Perry stands for “higher prices, more war and tax cuts for billionaires.”
He also believes Perry cannot defend his record and instead has been running what he called “bogus ads” on television. “He can’t win so he’s just making stuff up,” he said.
‘C-list, failed Republicans’
Moments after the event, Perry’s campaign sent out a scathing response, referring to the former Republican elected officials who gathered to show their support for Stelson as “C-list, failed Republicans.”
Perry was quoted in the statement as saying, “The spectacular headline writes itself: ‘A former Chicago Congressman who now moonlights at CNN and former Philadelphia and Virginia congressmen turned DC lobbyists travel to York to rally on behalf of a losing candidate with no principles and a desperate campaign.’ It’s like a bad joke, but that’s what happened.”
The statement read, “Rather than playing to her fake Beltway friends who were all justifiably rejected by their own states and party, perhaps Stelson should explain to the Voters why she opposes tax relief to tipped and overtime workers, lowering taxes on Seniors, and expanding the Child Tax Credit for the People of south-central Pennsylvania.”
He was referring to a July 30 tweet in which Stelson criticized Perry’s vote to cut Medicaid funding as part of what was known as the One Big Beautiful Bill. Stelson has said she supports the tax cuts for working families contained in the bill but opposed cuts to health care. She was critical of tax cuts given to the ultra-wealthy and to Perry’s opposition of extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that made health insurance affordable for working families, saying the end of the subsidies resulted in more than 12,000 of Perry’s constituents losing their health-care coverage.
Perry referred to Stelson as “a fake,” an assertion that he has made in one of his TV ads that portrays Stelson as “following a script,” just as she did when she was a news anchor, and would serve as a puppet of the Democratic leadership.
Stelson bristled at that assertion, and the assertions in Perry’s other TV ads.
“He’s lying, and he knows he’s lying,” she said. “He knows his 14 years in Congress are coming to an end and he’s desperate.”
Stelson said, “A congressman who has stopped serving Central Pennsylvania does not get to keep his job because of the ‘R’ next to his name. … I’ve never believed good representation is a partisan thing. I’m not running to be part of a political party. I’m running to deliver for the voters of Central Pennsylvania.”
