Justin Douglas, at podium, speaks after receiving the endorsement for Democratic candidate in Pa.'s 10th congressional district from the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, One Pennsylvania and CASA In Action in the state Capitol on April 7, 2026.
Jordan Wilkie / WITF
Jordan Wilkie / WITF
Justin Douglas, at podium, speaks after receiving the endorsement for Democratic candidate in Pa.'s 10th congressional district from the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, One Pennsylvania and CASA In Action in the state Capitol on April 7, 2026.
Immigrant and workers rights activists endorsed Justin Douglas on Tuesday for the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional district, and leveled harsh critiques at the Democratic Party’s leading candidate Janelle Stelson.
Douglas called himself a “grassroots candidate.” During the event, he and several speakers focused more criticism on Stelson and the Democratic political machine than on Scott Perry, the current Republican congressional representative for Dauphin County and large parts of Cumberland and York.
“We have to send different people to Washington,” Douglas said.
He faces an uphill battle to be competitive against Stelson in the May 19 primary. Pennsylvania’s Democratic powerhouses have endorsed Stelson, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, Lieutenant Gov. Austin Davis, State Sen. Patty Kim, and the slate of local state representatives. Though Douglas is a Dauphin County commissioner, the Dauphin County Democratic Party also backed Stelson. So did a dozen labor groups.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is also putting its weight behind Stelson, a process it began almost immediately after she lost the 2024 congressional race to Perry by one percentage point, the narrowest margin he’s faced since being elected to Congress in 2012. Stelson benefits from name recognition, after being a TV reporter and anchor in the area for three decades.
Talking about why so many in the Democratic party have supported Stelson, DCCC spokesperson Eli Cousin wrote in a statement that, “They know she’s the strongest candidate to defeat career politician Scott Perry in November and actually deliver real results for Central Pennsylvania.”
Stelson is certainly financially well-situated to challenge Perry. She raised almost $2.2 million for her campaign by Dec. 21, 2025, the most recent data posted to the Federal Election Commission’s website. In comparison, Douglas, who does not accept special interest donations, raised just shy of $85,000. In other words, Stelson has raised more than 25 times the amount of money Douglas has, and that doesn’t count the resources and support she gets from the DCCC.
“Dollars don’t vote, people do,” Douglas said, and added that endorsements usually follow the money. But Douglas said he’s not worried about the funding gap, and pointed to his underfunded campaign to flip his commissioner seat to Democratic after close to 100 years of Republican control.
Representatives from the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, One Pennsylvania and CASA In Action groups said they support Douglas because he has shown he supports immigrant rights and issues important to the working class, like raising wages.
Robin Gurung, a Nepali-speaking Bhutanese community leader, told the story of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting Bhutanese refugees in March 2025. At the time, most local Democrats said they couldn’t do anything about federal immigration enforcement, Gurung said.
“Your hands might have been tied, but were your mouths also tied?” Gurung asked during the press conference.
But Douglas did speak up. He held a press conference with community leaders to bring attention to the issue. Still, ICE deported over a dozen refugees with criminal records to Bhutan, where they were pushed out of the country again within 24 hours and made stateless, WITF’s reporting showed at the time.
Gurung praised Douglas for his support, including helping family members see their relatives one last time before they were deported. Douglas also spoke about the experience of helping families visit their loved ones in the Pike County jail days before they were flown to Bhutan, then driven to the Indian border to fend for themselves.
“I can close my eyes and see it. I can see the waiting room where families would walk back one by one and say goodbye to their loved ones, very likely the last time they would see them,” Douglas said. “We need elected officials who have the capacity to have empathy, to see themselves in the suffering, to consider the experience of their neighbors, and how their decisions on legislation impact that.”
Gurung criticised Democrats who did not speak out and said Stelson did not stand up for immigrants.
In a debate against Perry in 2024, Stelson agreed with her Republican opponent on the need to deport undocumented immigrants.
“I’d like to secure our border and make sure they don’t get into the country. The ones who are here, we need to find out where they are and they need to be sent home,” Stelson said at the Oct. 2024 debate.
Her campaign confirmed that it is still Stelson’s platform that migrants who have recently entered the country illegally should leave.
The Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance has tried unsuccessfully to meet with Stelson several times to talk about her policies, Gurung said..
“How can you speak for us when you would not even hear us?” Gurung asked.
It’s a critique several speakers leveled at Stelson at the Tuesday event. In response, her campaign wrote, “Running in a congressional district with nearly 800,000 people means not being able to attend every event, but Janelle will continue meeting with and listening to Central Pennsylvanians during this campaign as she has been doing for more than 30 years.”
Edited with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
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.
