| A registered Republican and longtime Brian Fitzpatrick voter tells the Associated Press that this time, she’s voting for Bob Harvie.
Her reason is simple: while Fitzpatrick pretends to be independent-minded, “I don’t see it happening.”
It’s just the latest example of a former Fitzpatrick voter switching over to support Harvie, and a clear indication that Fitzpatrick is in trouble heading into November. As gas and grocery prices rise, health care premiums soar, and corruption runs rampant in Washington, Bucks and Montgomery voters are realizing that Fitzpatrick has changed and is no longer fighting for them.
Read key excerpts from the AP below:
- Mary Ryan may be a registered Republican but she has never voted for President Donald Trump, turned off by his crass style of politics and chaotic approach to governing.
- But the 60-year-old medical writer from the Philadelphia suburbs has consistently backed her party’s congressman, five-term Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.
- Until now.
- This year, Ryan is so fed up with Trump and his grip on Congress that she is planning to vote in November for Fitzpatrick’s Democratic opponent in the 1st Congressional District, Bob Harvie, a twice countywide elected commissioner who is a former social studies teacher.
- Even though Fitzpatrick has pitched himself as a voice of reason in Washington, Ryan said that “I don’t see it happening.”
- Defections like this one could sink Fitzpatrick’s reelection chances and cost Republicans their narrow U.S. House majority.
- Harvie describes the race and his decision to run in almost existential terms.
- “The lack of trust in our government, the lack of trust in each other and seeing each other as enemies based just on, you know, the color of your skin, the religion you practice, who you voted for,” he said in an interview this summer. “I worry about just the basic foundations of this nation.”
- Harvie pointed to his deep roots in the district as a basis for why he could be different from previous Democrats who ran against Fitzpatrick.
- “I’m not somebody who needs to be reintroduced or introduced to people of this district. And that’s very, very different than any race he’s ever run before,” he said.
- Fitzpatrick has also unleashed a wave of spending in the race already, disbursing nearly $5 million, according to Federal Election Commission records.
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