We have another great article written by the infamous Sheldon Whitehouse Fan.

Let’s go back to 2018, the year of the last blue wave. Off the back of America’s discontent with the first Trump administration, Democrats netted 41 seats in the US House of Representatives. Suburbanites, who at best could be described as lukewarm on Trump in 2016, revolted against him by electing Democrats as their members of Congress.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats were able to sweep every congressional district in the Philadelphia suburbs, except for one. Brian Fitzpatrick was able to avoid the fate that many in his party faced and won reelection by 2.6% in a seat Clinton won two years prior. In the years since, he has been able to win his seat even as Democrats carry his district at the top of the ticket. I believe that will change in 2026.

Demographics

Demographically, PA-01 is the wealthiest congressional district in Pennsylvania with a median household income of $122,783. Racially, it is 79% White, 7% Hispanic, 4% Black, and 6% Asian. Additionally, 45% of the district is college-educated (much like many of the congressional districts that have moved left in the Trump era) and 70% work white-collar jobs. You can see the full details on Tabula America, but I have attached a few charts below.

But I think something that might help us contextualize these races further is looking at demographically similar districts using Proportio. The top ten districts that are most similar to PA-01 are PA-04, MO-02, MA-06, NJ-03, IL-06, NY-01, PA-06, NJ-04, MA-09 and WI-05. These are all largely more moderate, suburban districts that have either stayed stagnant or moved leftward during the Trump era. Just look at MA-06, where the primary to replace Seth Moulton resulted in the election of centrist Dan Koh. I would definitely describe this as a more “moderate” district, which is perhaps how Fitzpatrick has survived this long!

Background

Pennsylvania’s first congressional district is made up of all of Bucks County plus 13 townships in Montgomery County. It is one of four congressional districts located in the Philadelphia suburban collar counties. While the other districts in the collar counties have given more and more favorable margins to Democrats over the years, PA-01 has maintained a slight but consistent blue tint. In 2012, Barack Obama won PA-01 by 0.8%. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won it by a similar 0.71%. In 2020, Biden won it by around 4.69%. In 2024, when Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Bucks County since 1988, he lost the district itself by around 0.32% (mainly because the sliver of Montgomery County in the district favored Harris overwhelmingly, counteracting the swing in Bucks).

Then there’s the Republican representing the district in Congress, Brian Fitzpatrick. Brian’s older brother, Mike, represented the district from 2005 to 2007 and 2011 to 2017 in Congress. After Mike retired, Brian ran for his seat in 2016 and won by 8.8%. On the same ballot, Clinton narrowly defeated Trump in the district. Since it was so close in 2016, it was targeted by the DCCC, and Democrats nominated Scott Wallace (grandson of Henry Wallace). But he was dogged by claims of carpetbagging and was regarded as one of the worst candidates run during the 2018 election cycle.

Fitzpatrick ended up winning by 2.6% in the end. In 2020, his race was not even close, with Fitzpatrick winning by 13% even as Biden won the district by close to 5%. In 2022, despite an otherwise terrible year for Pennsylvania Republicans, Fitzpatrick still won by close to 10 points, outrunning gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano by almost 30 points and outrunning Senate candidate Mehmet Oz by 17 points. In 2024, during the best year for Republicans in Pennsylvania since the 1980s, he won by 12.8%. He ended up outrunning Trump by around 13% and outran most down-ballot row officers by 7%.

How has he been able to do this? Well, Fitzpatrick has been successful in threading the needle between appeasing the more moderate electorate in their district and the more right-wing primary base. For example, instead of voting to impeach Trump after the January 6th riots, Fitzpatrick introduced a motion to censure him, thereby avoiding the inevitable primary challenge that other republicans who did vote to impeach Trump did. Couple that with endorsements from groups who traditionally back Democrats, and it’s easy to see how he’s been able to stay afloat in this swing district for so long.

The Cracks….

Despite all the apparent headwinds of facing Fitzpatrick, I believe he’s not as unbeatable as one might think.

For one, I believe Democrats have gotten an S-tier recruit in Bob Harvie. He is a Bucks County Commissioner who was first elected in 2019, which was the first time in 40 years that it had been controlled by Democrats. When he was reelected in 2023, it was the first time since the Civil War that a democratic commissioner had won reelection in Bucks County. Fitzpatrick has never faced a countywide elected official before, so he is likely by far the strongest candidate he has ever faced.

Additionally, there were nine countywide seats up for election in Bucks County in 2025. Democrats won all nine of them, and some of them were incumbents who lost by close to double digits. This has not happened in the county’s history, and keep in mind Bucks is actually one of the three original counties of Pennsylvania.

Finally, despite Fitzpatrick’s seemingly overwhelming margins in prior elections, there are some cracks in his coalition. For one, Fitzpatrick’s margin of victory actually dropped from 13.2% in 2020 to 12.8% in 2024. This seems like a minor decrease, until you note that Trump actually did much better in PA-01 in 2024 than in 2020. So Fitzpatrick actually outran the top of the ticket by around 5% less in 2024 than in 2020.

There are indications that Fitzpatrick is worried about his chances as well. In 2018 and 2022, Fitzpatrick largely ignored the gubernatorial candidacies of Scott Wagner and Doug Mastriano, largely because he knew those candidates were unlikely to win and that being tied to them would harm his reelection chances. But this year, Fitzpatrick has outright gone on to talk about how Josh Shapiro should run for president and how he thinks Shapiro will win reelection. He’s also invited Shapiro to his wedding, all while Shapiro has heavily backed his opponent, Bob Harvie. No doubt he is heavily aligning with Shapiro because he won Bucks County by 20 in 2022 and is likely to win it by even more this year. Ask Mehmet Oz and any one of the congressional candidates running in Pennsylvania in 2022 about what can happen down-ballot if the gubernatorial candidate from the opposite party is winning in a landslide.

Polling

The non-internal polling on PA-01 has been sparse, just like most congressional polling. Harvie has put out internals, though. In mid-March, Harvie was down by 6% in his internals. In early August, he released another internal with him down by 4%, with Fitzpatrick’s approval at -6. Finally, more recently, House Majority PAC put out an internal saying that Harvie was down by 1, 48-49. That is the best polling result for any Democrat running against Fitzpatrick since 2018. Now, these are internals and should be viewed with skepticism, but directionally, it is probably accurate that the race is tightening. Additionally, the House majority PAC will start running ads on September 1st, which should make the race much tighter.

There is something else I would like to note, and that is State Navigate’s poll of Pennsylvania’s State Senate District 6. This district is located entirely within Bucks County, and is a must-win seat if Democrats are to get a legislative trifecta in Pennsylvania. Trump won this district by 5.5 percent in 2024, and Governor Shapiro won it by 18%. In their poll, State Navigate found that Shapiro was winning the district 59-34 and that Trump was disapproved of 59-39.

Given that this district is redder than the county at large, it stands to reason that Trump’s approvals are much worse countywide and that Shapiro is going to win the county by more than he did in 2024 (he won it by 20 then). Can Fitzpatrick survive that Trump disapproval number? Keep in mind that at the state legislative level where you’d expect the most ticket splitting, the incumbent Republican Frank Farry is losing narrowly to his opponent Eileen Abillar. If incumbent Republicans are losing at the local level in Bucks County in a district that is redder than the county itself, then Fitzpatrick is likely in a very tight race!

Conclusion

Defeating Brian Fitzpatrick will definitely be a difficult goal, but one that is definitely attainable. As Trump’s approval ratings decline to the 30s, Democrats are understandably looking at reach seats. But if Democrats are able to win PA-01, they are far more likely to hold it in 2026 than any of the more ambitious seats such as KY-06 or IA-02. Thus, it is worth investing in, no matter how daunting Fitzpatrick seems as an opponent.