Candidates for the Pennsylvania 10th Congressional District. Janelle Stelson, left, and Scott Perry, right.
Courtesy of Stelson and Perry campaigns
In tight race, Perry, Stelson make final pitches
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Jordan Wilkie/WITF
Courtesy of Stelson and Perry campaigns
Candidates for the Pennsylvania 10th Congressional District. Janelle Stelson, left, and Scott Perry, right.
Intro
Pennsylvania’s 10th District Congressional race is one of the tightest in the country and is one of a handful of races that could decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Democratic candidate Janelle Stelson is running to unseat incumbent Republican Scott Perry, who has served in the House since 2013. The 10th District covers Dauphin and large swaths of Cumberland and York counties.
Stelson, a former TV news anchor at WGAL, calls herself a political newcomer and uses Perry’s history in Congress against him, including his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and his support for a national abortion ban.
Perry, a retired U.S. Army National Guard brigadier general, served in the Pennsylvania legislature for six years before running for Congress. His campaig has focused on his personal history, and he describes his voting history as fiscally responsible.
Republicans are defending a narrow majority in the U.S. House, controlling 220 seats to Democrats’ 212; there are three vacancies in districts that split 2-1 in favor of Democrats, putting the potential party breakdown at 221-214, or just 7 seats, with 22 races rated by the Cook Political Report as toss-ups.
Republicans have a better chance of winning the Senate. More Democrats are defending seats in states that lean Republican. Depending on House results, Republicans could have unified control of Congress, with small margins, giving them the ability to support a second term for former president Donald Trump or oppose a Kamala Harris-led White House.
Should Democrats control the House, they would be able to slow legislative changes under a Trump presidency, or better support Vice President Harris should she win.
Since redistricting in 2018, Perry has beaten Democratic challengers in the district with 3 – 5 point margins.
Stelson, a former Republican, has moved to the right of the Democratic Party, most notably embracing the Republican position on immigration.
Stelson has raised $5.3 million to Perry’s $3.8 million in the state’s fourth most expensive race for a U.S. House seat, though money does not alone determine election outcomes.
The border
Both candidates say the United States needs to secure the border.
“I think we need to secure the borders, and if people get into the country who are not deemed to have a legitimate claim to be here, I look forward to making sure law enforcement has every tool available to find any criminals in our midst,” Stelson said in an interview with WITF.
WITF asked to clarify if Stelson meant all undocumented immigrants should be considered criminals. She said no, but failed to define where the line should be drawn.
Perry also equates immigrants with crime. In a conversation with the Rotary Club of York, which both candidates visited in the closing weeks of the campaign, Perry made misleading statements about the number of immigrants convicted of violent crimes.
“They’re in our country, 13,000 convicted murderers are in our country illegally, just wandering around unchecked,” Perry said.
That number is pulled from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement report to Congress. But those numbers span decades, including during Trump’s administration. And those who are not in ICE custody may be detained by state or local law enforcement agencies, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
Earlier this year, Perry made comments seemingly in partial support of the “great replacement theory” which experts describe as antisemitic and xenophobic political messaging. His comments echo several made by Trump and are part of a conspiratorial narrative alleging an intentional plot by immigrants and the political Left to replace the white majority.
Neither candidate has provided any detail about how they would have the government carry out mass deportations.
The positions disappointed Rotary member, and local businessman Calvin Weary, a registered Republican who lives in York Township.
“We’re in a constant state of voting for the lesser of two evils,” Weary said. “To not be able to figure out a way to be the charitable nation we’re supposed to be at home, it just seems like it’s a broken system.”
Abortion
Stelson supports a woman’s right to choose and legislation to return abortion access to the standard set under Roe v. Wade. That set a federal requirement that abortion be available until a fetus becomes viable. The country operated under that rule for 50 years until the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe in 2022, returning decisions on abortion access to state legislatures.
“You don’t want government involved in telling you where, how, if to start a family and how to expand your family,” Stelson said, also to the York Rotary, a week before Perry’s appearance. “I just don’t think the government has any place in that decision.”
Perry cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, which is a national abortion ban that defines life as starting at conception and does not provide for exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.
During the Q&A with the Rotary of York, Perry said he does support exceptions.
“I do not support taxpayer funded abortions,” he said.
Since 1977, the Hyde Amendment has prevented federal funds from being used to pay for abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
Abortion opponents believe the Hyde Amendment restrictions should block any federal funding from going to organizations that provide abortion at all, even if the money isn’t used for that procedure. On those grounds, Perry opposes funding for Planned Parenthood.
A broader interpretation of federal policy to say the government will not fund any organization that provides abortions, rather than the status quo where it simply does not pay for abortions itself, would either cut off federal funding to medical facilities and other abortion providers, or force them to stop providing abortion care. That would severely limit access to abortion.
Democracy
Stelson said she supports the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a bill Democrats introduced to strengthen protections against voter suppression.
She also attacked Perry’s history on voting against certification of presidential votes, which he did on January 6, 2021, after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
The FBI also investigated Perry for his involvement with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Though the FBI seized Perry’s phone in 2022, no state or federal agency has brought charges against him.
In previous statements, Perry has said his appointment to the House Intelligence Committee, which requires background checks, shows he did not do anything wrong. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who also tried to help overturn the 2020 election, appointed Perry to the committee.
Fiscal responsibility
Stelson’s campaign strategy has been to attack Perry’s voting history. That remained true while speaking to the York Rotary.
“He’s the only one who voted against housing homeless veterans,” Stelson said. “He voted against additional health benefits for military men and women who breathed in toxic burn pits in war zones.”
Previous York Rotary president Michael Summers answered Perry about those votes.
“Of course, as for those who have borne the battle, we have a duty, we have an obligation and a responsibility to take care of the health care that is needed as a result of that service,” Perry said. “I’m all for that.”
But, Perry said, he opposed the bill on administrative grounds. He said the bill allowed veterans who claimed injury or illness related to a burn pit to skip the line in a Veteran Affairs healthcare system that already has long wait times.
Perry defended other positions, like potentially raising the age to qualify for Social Security, based on his view that more must be done to cut government spending and debt.
“Every single cent that I vote on is borrowed money,” Perry said, referring to the national debt. “We need to stop funding all these things that we can’t afford.”
At the same time, Perry supports renewing aspects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Analysis by the Tax Policy Center shows those tax cuts favored the already wealthy, without a trickle down effect to the majority of workers. Research by the Congressional Budget Office in 2019 showed federal deficits increased under the new tax plan.
Stelson has not laid out a specific tax plan, though she previously told WITF she supports any bill that increases taxation on the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations so that they “pay their fair share.”
The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
