News · Press Release

Scott Perry Grows Increasingly More Vulnerable

NOTUS: “For the first time since being elected to Congress more than a decade ago, Rep. Scott Perry is not going to slide to reelection.”

Election-denier Scott Perry is increasingly vulnerable thanks to his unwavering commitment to putting far-right extremism and the chaos caucus ahead of Pennsylvania’s working families.

Perry is facing a lawsuit for his role in the election-denialism that helped spark the deadly Jan 6 insurrection, which his challengers in both parties have called a driving force for their campaigns.

Beyond his conspiracy theories, Perry “consistently votes against compromises to keep the government open,” agitating his constituents in a district experts say is “changing” while Perry isn’t changing along with it.

DCCC Spokesperson Aidan Johnson:
“Luck is running out for extremist Scott Perry. Pennsylvanians across the political spectrum have had it with Perry ignoring their needs to focus on doing Donald Trump’s dirty work. They will vote out one of the founders of the chaos caucus in November.”

NOTUS: Rep. Scott Perry Has Consistently Sailed To November. This Year Is Different.
Katherine Swartz | January 31, 2024

  • For the first time since being elected to Congress more than a decade ago, Rep. Scott Perry is not going to slide to reelection.

  • The Republican, closely aligned with former President Donald Trump, is facing not just a legal push to kick him off the ballot, but his first primary challenger.

  • Besides one failed special election bid for Gettysburg school board in 1995, John Henry Newman has no political experience… He didn’t imagine entering politics, but Perry changed his mind.

  • He pointed to the early morning of Jan. 7, 2021, when Perry introduced a resolution in the joint session of Congress objecting to the counting of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes.

  • Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional district, which encompasses parts of York and Cumberland counties and all of Dauphin County, is changing, and Perry’s critics say he isn’t changing along with it. The district narrowly went for Trump in 2020, but swung for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro by 12 points in 2022. Registered Republicans account for only 44% of all voters.

  • Perry’s approval rating in the district was at 34% in October, lower than President Joe Biden’s, according to polling conducted by Public Policy Polling.

  • Perry is facing a lawsuit in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court to keep him off the ballot for his role in attempting to keep Trump in office, a case whose outcome may be closely tied to a looming Supreme Court case around Trump’s own fate on the ballot.

  • While the Supreme Court will debate whether or not Trump falls under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment as an “officer of the United States,” that legal debate doesn’t matter in Perry’s case, as the section explicitly applies to a “Senator or Representative in Congress.”

Bloomberg Government: Democrats Try to Chip Away at House Freedom Caucus in Elections
Zach Cohen, Jonathan Tamari, and Maeve Sheehey | January 31, 2024

  • Rep. Scott Perry last year led the most hard-right faction in Congress and built a reputation as one of the most conservative and combative figures in the House. But the Pennsylvania Republican represents a relatively moderate district, and Democrats hope to make him pay as he faces a competitive re-election this year.

  • Perry is one of a handful of hardline House Republicans whom Democrats are targeting in competitive districts, hoping to turn their prominence on the right into a liability with moderate voters at home.

  • The outcome of those races will have significant impacts. With House Republicans holding a tiny majority, a shift in a few seats could swing control of the House to Democrats. And if the GOP keeps the House, the continued presence of those lawmakers could further push the chamber to the right.

  • Perry is perhaps the most high-profile House hard-liner facing a serious Democratic challenge.

  • He was a leader in the push to overturn the 2020 presidential election result and he’s consistently voted against compromises to keep the government open. Federal prosecutors have sought access to his phone records over his election denial efforts. 

  • Perry’s legal troubles have sapped his campaign account. He had $541,000 on hand as of his most recent report, and $145,000 in debts—most of them to a white-collar attorney. That’s in addition to the $190,000 he spent on the same attorney last year for either legal services or past debts.

  • Democratic insiders in Pennsylvania and Washington point out that the area is slowly trending leftward as more liberal voters move from bigger cities. It still leans right, but it’s not a hard-right bastion.

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