Candidate forum lays bare political, policy divides between PA-10 Democrats Stelson and Douglas

Stelson refused a debate; Douglas refused to guarantee Stelson an endorsement should she win the primary.

• Jordan Wilkie/WITF
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 Jordan Wilkie / WITF News

Supporters of Democratic candidate Justin Douglas for Congress lined the street before the candidate form at Central Penn College on April 26, 2026.

The Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District is starting to turn heads. Janelle Stelson is refusing to debate her opponent Justin Douglas, a Dauphin County commissioner. In turn, Douglas is refusing to endorse Stelson should she win the primary unless she liberalizes more of her positions, including on immigration. 

“Anyone who runs for office has to earn your vote,” Douglas said at a Sunday afternoon forum for candidates running for office in central Pennsylvania. “You have to earn my endorsement. It’s not just gonna come because I ran in a race with you.”

Stelson’s campaign is relying on her name recognition from 30 years in local TV news and a 2024 run for Congress, which she lost by 1% to incumbent Republican Scott Perry. Her messaging is relentlessly focused on criticizing Perry and ignoring Douglas. 

In response to a question about the difference between her and Douglas and whether she would endorse him if he won, Stelson said yes, they’re both Democrats.

“You know, a lot of people have made a big deal about, ‘Oh, Janelle, you didn’t show up at this forum,’ or, ‘Why didn’t you go to this?’ Part of it is I think people are sick of the paralyzing partisan politics. I’m not gonna rip apart another Democrat,” Stelson said. 

At Sunday’s forum, hosted by Democratic-affiliated groups Indivisible, PA 10th District Network and Cumberland Valley Rising, Stelson showed up five minutes after the scheduled start time despite being the first speaker. She left immediately after she finished speaking to attend another event. 

The forum, attended by approximately 200 people skewing heavily toward a 60+ age demographic, also featured six other local candidates running for state office. Other primary candidates, like Rich Forsman and Nate Wood running for the 34th Pennsylvania Senate district, and 104th state House district candidates Dave Madsen and Shane Steele, sat at the same table and traded answers to moderator and audience questions. A series of candidates without primary challengers also spoke: Sara Agerton in the 88th House district; Jessica St. Clair in the 87th House district; and TaWanda Stallworth in the 199th House district.

Organizers at Sunday’s forum confirmed that Stelson only agreed to come if she spoke separately from Douglas rather than debate him. Stelson’s campaign manager, Alma Baker, did not answer a question about that agreement. Instead, she issued a statement saying the reason Stelson won’t debate Douglas is because he won’t endorse her. 

“Douglas has repeatedly refused to commit to supporting the Democratic nominee for Congress,” Baker wrote to WITF. “Douglas’ inability to say that any Democrat would be better than stopping Scott Perry and his DC agenda puts him deeply out of touch with most voters in our area, and unfit for a debate with any Democrat committed to winning in November.” 

Baker’s statement follows the playbook Stelson has employed during her campaign: simply assuming she will win the primary. There’s no public polling data on how Stelson is likely to fare against Douglas, and most people would assume Stelson is going to win handily, according to pollster Berwood Yost. 

Yost, who runs a center for opinion research at Franklin & Marshall College, said Douglas is trying to win the primary while Stelson is already focused on the general election. And he said that approach may backfire for her. 

“We know there are two divides in the Democratic party right now, one ideological and one generational,” Yost told WITF. “My gut tells me that Stelson is on the wrong side of both of those in a Democratic primary, particularly if she doesn’t make the case to primary voters about why she is the right choice.”

Stelson is 65 years old and Douglas is 42 years old. 

Yost said no outcome in the May 19 primary should be a surprise. 

Policy positions  

Douglas’ campaign relies heavily on volunteers, who made their presence felt at the forum. A half-dozen showed up early to hold pro-Douglas signs for passing traffic. During Stelson’s time speaking, audience members interrupted three times to complain she didn’t answer the question. At least one of those audience members was volunteering with Douglas’ campaign. 

When the moderator asked Stelson whether she would support Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to raise the tax cap for Social Security income from $184,500 back to $500,000, another audience member interrupted a minute into Stelson’s response.

“That’s my question. I don’t think you understand it,” she said, before explaining more about the proposal.

“Okay, I understand. Thank you very much for clarifying,” Stelson said. “I don’t think I would raise it that high. I would try to keep things where they are.” 

Douglas, who attended the entire forum and watched Stelson, got a similar question about Social Security. He supported raising the cap, which he said is caused by a “great shift in economic disparity” where the wealthy aren’t being taxed enough.

“It means it’s going to be insolvent by 2033,” Douglas said, referring to Social Security’s upcoming fiscal cliff. “If we don’t do something bold here in lifting these caps, we are going to be in big trouble.” 

Douglas received applause for his position that was more definite and more liberal than Stelson’s. It’s a hallmark of his campaign, which has him flanking Stelson with progressive policies popular within the party — like a moratorium on data center development, increasing taxes on the wealthy to fund Social Security and raising wages. 

“I’m here to unite the Democratic Party around progressive values that too often get thrown by the wayside,” Douglas said. “We have to reclaim our FDR spirit, which is bold reform, not Band-Aid policies,” he said, referring to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal reforms after the Great Depression. 

35-to-1 fundraising gap 

Stelson’s campaign has the full support of the Democratic Party machine. Every major Democrat in Pennsylvania, from Gov. Josh Shapiro to local state Sen. Patty Kim, has endorsed her. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the national party group dedicated to putting Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, is backing Stelson. 

All that has helped Stelson bring in huge amounts of campaign cash, putting her in the top 50 fundraisers out of over 3,000 candidates for U.S. House. Her campaign has raised more than $4.3 million through the end of March, according to the most recent data from the Federal Election Commission. 

Douglas, in comparison, sits at number 1,064 on the fundraising list, having brought in just under $122,000. 

The winner of May’s primary will take on Perry, whose campaign has raised more than $4 million to keep the district Republican. He’s been in Congress since 2012; since 2018 his seat has been seen as flippable by Democrats and political prognosticators.

This year, Democratic hope is riding high, with a perfect storm expected to help liberal candidates win office up and down the ballot. President Donald Trump has record-low approval ratings, while public opinion polling shows Americans are unhappy with the Iran war, inflation and gas prices. Republicans also face the usual midterm slump, as it is standard politics in the U.S. for the party opposing the president to overperform the first midterm after a presidential election. 

Pennsylvania will also see a governor’s race, where Shapiro is a heavy favorite over his presumptive Republican challenger and current state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. When a favorable candidate is at the top of the ballot, it almost always helps candidates of the same party further down the ballot. 

The political calculus is clear. Stelson, who narrowly lost to Perry two years ago, seems to have a solid chance of winning this year, simply because she is already well-known and can ride a Democratic wave, should it materialize. Douglas, largely unknown outside of Dauphin County, will have to make serious inroads in Cumberland and York counties, which are both mostly part of the 10th district, and are also more conservative than Dauphin.

Update: A previous version of this story misstated the year Social Security is likely to become insolvent. The correct year is 2033. 

Produced 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.

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