The Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board is officially endorsing Bob Harvie, the latest sign of momentum behind his surging campaign to unseat Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and flip Pennsylvania’s 1st District.
The endorsement is especially notable given that the Editorial Board has previously endorsed Fitzpatrick in past years.
 In addition to praising Harvie, the Editorial Board offers a blistering takedown of Fitzpatrick. Their criticisms of Fitzpatrick include:
- U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.) has been a member of Congress for nearly a decade, and it is difficult to determine what exactly he has accomplished.
- Fitzpatrick, 52, claims to be a problem solver, but he is really part of the problem.
- Because Fitzpatrick represents a swing district that covers Bucks County and portions of Montgomery County, he doesn’t always vote lockstep with his Republican colleagues. But when Fitzpatrick’s vote is needed, he backs Trump’s incoherent agenda, which has made life more expensive for everyone.
- For Fitzpatrick’s constituents, Republican control in Washington has resulted in higher interest rates, sluggish job growth, and increased prices on everything from gasoline to food, cars, housing, and utility bills. Not to mention a host of constitutional, ethical, and legal abuses with no oversight or pushback.
- He did vote against Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment: the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which added trillions to the ballooning deficit, extended tax cuts for the wealthy, slashed Medicaid and other support for the most vulnerable citizens, and added billions to support Trump’s deportation roundups. But Fitzpatrick’s no vote came only after final passage of the measure was assured. Weeks before the measure’s final passage, he was the deciding vote to advance the bill that ultimately became law.
- He often performs this type of calculated two-step to appear not so extreme to his more moderate constituents. But the results spell pure MAGA.
- He is increasingly out of step with his own constituents. He supports data center development, which most voters oppose. He also opposes codifying abortion rights, which a majority of the public supports.
- Fitzpatrick has also been largely missing in action in his own district. He has not held a town-hall meeting with voters since 2017, calling them a waste of time.
- He has refused to debate his opponent, Bob Harvie, a Bucks County commissioner. Fitzpatrick declined to meet with this Editorial Board to make his case for reelection — even though The Inquirer endorsed him in the past.
- If 80% of success is just showing up, Fitzpatrick has failed his constituents.
- The problem may rest with who Fitzpatrick really represents. His campaign is largely funded by billionaires and out-of-state corporate PACs backed by Wall Street banks, Big Pharma, and Koch Industries.
- Fitzpatrick’s true character is shining through in the onslaught of attack ads aimed at his opponent. An ally with a checkered past was recently exposed for planting negative articles about Harvie. That’s a Tammany Hall move.
- Fortunately, voters in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District have a more upstanding alternative in Commissioner Harvie.
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