| A new profile highlights how firefighter Bob Brooks is running to give working people a voice in Washington.
Bob tells The Guardian: “We need to change who’s representing us and who’s making the rules and the laws. That’s what inspired me to do this. I think we need more everyday people down there, because everyday people are the ones that are struggling.”
Read highlights from the profile for yourself:
- Bob Brooks has worked a lot of jobs, sometimes several at once to make ends meet. He was a paper boy at age 10, and then a dishwasher, prep cook, pizza deliverer, bartender and truck driver. Even after he became a firefighter in 2005, Brooks managed to start a snow-removal and lawn-care business and coach baseball.
- “We need to change who’s representing us and who’s making the rules and the laws,” Brooks told the Guardian. “That’s what inspired me to do this. I think we need more everyday people down there, because everyday people are the ones that are struggling.”
- In November, Brooks is running against Ryan Mackenzie, who narrowly defeated the Democratic incumbent Susan Wild in 2024 after receiving nearly $1.1m in backing from a Koch-backed political action committee, Americans for Prosperity. Mackenzie was first elected to the Pennsylvania house of representatives in 2012 shortly after finishing business school at Harvard.
- The race is currently a toss-up, with the Cook Partisan Index ranking it a +1 in favor of Mackenzie but noting that he is “one of the most vulnerable House Republicans in the country”.
- Brooks joined the race following encouragement from Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, and US representative Chris Deluzio, a Democrat from western Pennsylvania, who knew him from his years leading the firefighters’ union.
- Brooks recalled his first task as the union’s new local vice-president in 2005 was to put on a clam bake.
- “I then learned quickly how … to represent the members,” Brooks told the Guardian, citing the work involved in negotiating union contracts and handling grievances. “Every day, I get to do what I love, and that’s fight for my members, fight for their healthcare, fight for their working conditions and fight for better pay.”
- “It appears, not just to me but to my unions and, quite honestly, to everyday people, that Washington doesn’t give a damn about us,” said Brooks. “Only 2% of Congress is from the working class, compared to 60% of our country.”
- He said: “Quite honestly, I’m tired of getting kicked in the teeth.”
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