'Uniquely vulnerable': Analyst says one MAGA district could hand White House to Harris
A MAGA Republican lawmaker's key swing state district could hand the presidential election to Vice President Kamala Harris as he fights off an energized Democratic challenger attacking what she dubs extremist views, according to a new report.
Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) is currently campaigning on hardline MAGA policies in the pivotal state's key battleground district that is showing signs of moving further to the political left, New York Magazine reported Friday.
"Both Democratic and Republican operatives believe he’s uniquely vulnerable as the district’s political make-up shifts," wrote reporter Ben Jacobs. "If Harris wins this swing district, it would be almost mathematically impossible for her to lose the state."
Perry, one of Donald Trump's key allies in 2020 as the then-president attempted to overturn the presidential election, now faces a challenge from Janelle Stelson, a former broadcast journalist who says she decided to pursue political office when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
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According to New York Magazine, Stelson is banking on suburban women who share her revulsion with conservatives' attacks on abortion rights — and Perry is sticking to his conservatism.
"For the incumbent, the big question is whether his uncompromisingly conservative approach can still appeal to enough voters," Jacobs writes.
"Democrats, meanwhile, need to keep winning over the voters who are filling the newly erected townhouses springing up off four-lane highways that crisscross the district while turning out the party’s traditional base of minority voters."
These opposing tactics have seen Perry attack Stelson on her residency — a few miles out of the district she hopes to represent — as Stelson paints him as an extremist who doesn't represent mainstream Republican values, New York Magazine reported.
To show readers how voters are responding to the candidates' messaging, Jacobs reports from two recent campaign events.
Stelson appeared at the Hispanic Heritage Festival in Harrisburg, where attendees demanded selfies with the former NBC News affiliate anchor — and one goes so far as to declare the Democrat his "idol."
The former broadcaster responds with self-deprecating jokes, telling one fan, “I’m out of my box — I have legs.”
Perry then appears at the Hummelstown Art Festival a few miles away, lost in a sea of polo shirts.
"Save for a staffer walking behind him with stickers and door-hangers, one would have no idea why this middle-aged man in a polo shirt was different from all the other middle-aged men in polo shirts," reported Jacobs. " Some attendees didn’t know who he was."