Democrats are throwing everything at MAGA Rep. Scott Perry. This time, they think it might work.
Democrats hope Janelle Stelson can beat Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry, a Donald Trump ally and Freedom Caucus leader, in the 2024 election.
CAMP HILL, Pa. — Democrats have long tried to oust Rep. Scott Perry, the former head of the far-right Freedom Caucus and a staunch Donald Trump ally, in this Pennsylvania swing district. But this time, they think they have a real shot with their candidate, Janelle Stelson.
At first glance, Stelson appears to be taking a throw-everything-at-the-wall approach. She has ripped Perry for backing restrictions on abortion. She blamed him for Washington’s failure to solve the border crisis. She has hammered Perry, a six-term MAGA congressman, for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results, labeling him one of the “primary fomenters” of the Jan. 6 attack. And she has called out Perry for voting against bipartisan bills, including those to award medals to police officers who defended the Capitol that day, to help homeless veterans find housing and to expand health benefits for war veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
But Stelson, a former TV reporter and anchor who has been telling stories here in the Harrisburg area for nearly four decades, is weaving those threads together into a scathing narrative about Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th District.
“He, in no way, shape or form, represents Republicans anymore — he’s so extreme,” Stelson, a former Republican herself, said in an interview at Cornerstone Coffeehouse in Camp Hill, just across the Susquehanna River from the State Capitol.
“It’s all part of the same partisan nonsense. Most people ... they just want better lives for their families, their children. They want to be able to afford things. They want good-paying jobs. We need to be educated, we need to be safe, we need to be healthy,” she continued. “All these things that he has not been able to help accomplish because he’s so extreme.”
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