Four U.S. House seats could flip in Pa. Tuesday, swaying control of Congress. Here’s where each race stands.

On a chilly Saturday morning, laborers fueled by coffee, Philly Pretzel Factory, and breakfast pizza mingled around the parking lot of a Northeast Philadelphia union hall in support of an unlikely ally in bordering Bucks County.

U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, the five-term Republican in the nationally watched race in the Philadelphia suburbs, stood atop a Teamsters-branded riser, Wawa coffee cup in tow, and told supporters that he would always have their backs.

“I just want to thank you for being salt of the earth, beer and blue jeans, organic human beings, because they’re not just the supporters we want; they’re the friends we want. That’s the family we want, and the loyalty runs strong and deep,” said Fitzpatrick, who’s collected an unusual swell of labor support for a Republican in what is shaping up to be one of the most consequential congressional races in the country.

Democrat Bob Harvie narrowly leads Fitzpatrick in the the 1st Congressional District race, a new Inquirer/New York Times/Siena University poll found.

Democrats lead in two other key Pennsylvania districts and another is tied, putting Republicans on track to lose up to four critical seats with their narrow U.S. House majority in the balance, the poll found.

Meanwhile, Gov. Josh Shapiro is up by double digits in each district and President Donald Trump is deeply underwater.

Democrats have the momentum, but each district has also seen twists that have arguably made their races more competitive in the final weeks ahead of the midterms.

Upwards of $121 million in ads. Investments from President Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s political organizations. Accusations of criminal wrongdoing and subterfuge. Tension-filled or canceled debates.

Fitzpatrick, the last Republican representing a congressional district in the Philadelphia suburbs, is making a markedly more public campaign push compared to recent elections while Harvie, a Bucks County commissioner, hopes to ride a wave of momentum behind Democrats in the state and nationally.

In the Lehigh Valley-based 7th and Harrisburg-based 10th Congressional Districts, Republicans are bombarding their opponents with attacks. And up north in the Scranton-based 8th District, a Democratic campaign relentlessly focused on corruption hopes to flip the most Trump-friendly of the four regions.

Shapiro — running for reelection and pinning part of his reputation on flipping the districts before a likely 2028 presidential run — will appear with each of the Democrats again in the next four days. House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican trying to hold on to his leadership position, will be with at least one of his party’s candidates again Wednesday, while Trump — in a shift from his focus on Pennsylvania in previous election years — turns his attention elsewhere.

So far, it appears that Trump has no plans to come to Pennsylvania, but if he came to the 1st District, Fitzpatrick said he wouldn’t stand beside him.

“If the president or vice president were to come in, I would not rally,” Fitzpatrick said Saturday outside the union hall.

Twenty minutes away from where Fitzpatrick rallied with labor union members, Harvie made one of his final pitches to voters by hosting a town hall Saturday afternoon in his Lower Bucks stomping grounds in absence of a debate.

At Ben Franklin Middle School in Levittown, the Democrat fielded questions from voters on all sorts of topics — affordability, data centers, standing up to the Trump administration, election security, gun violence, and education — for roughly an hour and a half as he laid out the stakes of the midterms.

“We are at a point where we don’t even believe in each other, let alone our government or the future. And for a country built by dreamers, built on dreams, that is a serious threat to who we are and where we’re going to go,” Harvie said.

“That’s why this election is so critical.”

But it’s also clear that a few voters who are supportive of Harvie want to see more from the Democrat’s campaign in the home stretch as he challenges an incumbent with decades of family name recognition and a massive war chest.

One resident said she appreciated what Harvie was saying during the town hall but that it’s “the most I’ve ever heard from you during your whole campaign…I’ve been left wondering, like, is Bob a fighter?”

Another voter asked Harvie why he is not matching Fitzpatrick’s five lawn banners on Second Street Pike.

Harvie assured these voters that he’s confident about where he stands in this race and will be a “fighter” for his hometown district. He said lawn signs and banners don’t always correlate to outcome.

“I have fought and won every time. I didn’t get into this race to lose,” Harvie said.

In the coming days, Harvie is set to get in front of voters at a slew of events, including a Saturday rally in Doylestown with Shapiro, by far the most popular candidate on Tuesday’s ballot, as the governor makes his third visit to the county just this month.

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick is trying to lean into the moderate brand he’s curated in his nearly 10 years in office, running ads that say he’s “ranked #1 most independent in the nation” and tap into his labor support.

“Brian Fitzpatrick stood with us when it was hard. It’s easy to stand with you when everybody’s there, but it’s hard when your whole caucus is calling you and say, ‘We need you to vote this way,’” said Ryan Boyer, president of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council at the labor rally.

But as the lawmaker criticizes his party — and votes with Trump and the GOP roughly 70% of the time, the least of any House Republican — he is continuing to receive party leaders’ support as the Harvie campaign seeks to tie Fitzpatrick to the unpopular president.

“Fitzpatrick talks good, saying he’s independent. But his votes mostly aren’t,” said Bruce Roggio, 70, a registered Democrat from Southampton who has voted for Fitzpatrick several times in the past but now plans to vote for Harvie.

He’s also received or benefitted from millions of dollars from political action committees associated with Republican leadership, recent campaign finance reports show.

Fitzpatrick has not garnered an endorsement from Trump, though the president’s MAGA Inc. super PAC has spent at least $100,000 on his behalf.

The final stretches of two other contested races have been defined by an onslaught of attack ads and legal threats.

In the tied Harrisburg-area race between U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R., York) and Democrat Janelle Stelson, the Republican on Tuesday was doubling down on a controversial ad claiming Stelson exposed herself to a neighbor’s grandchild.

Stelson’s campaign has denounced the claims as false and said it’s considering legal action as Perry continues to air the ad and declines to provide proof of the incident.

Perry, in a statement Tuesday, said the ad “shows a clear pattern of Stelson’s poor judgment, character and behavior that voters have every right to know.” Stelson campaign manager Alma Baker said Tuesday that “after 14 years of Scott Perry working against them, Central Pennsylvania is ready to send him packing.”

In the Lehigh Valley-based district, Bob Brooks — a union leader and retired firefighter — has led in polls and fundraising for months as he challenges freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie. But he’s also now defending himself against a barrage of negative ads as both candidates prioritize attending community events and other on-the-ground organizing efforts.

“Gov. Shapiro said to me, ‘Wade through the smoke. Concentrate on the fire,’” Brooks said of his recent approach, noting that his supporters “love the fire puns.”

The race has been marked by unusual twists, including accusations by Brooks that Mackenzie and his allies tried to manipulate who appeared on the ballot. Attack ads, a legal threat, and the cancellation of the only planned debate have marked a turbulent final few weeks.

“I’m numb to it,” Brooks said in an interview at a union hall in Bethlehem on Thursday after addressing volunteers and supporters who were about to fan out on a door-knocking mission. “My biggest problem is that people actually believe this nonsense. We’ve done our part to show ‘good Bob.’ And they’re so desperate, they don’t have votes to run on, so all they can try and show is ‘bad Bob.’ And ‘bad Bob’ doesn’t really exist.”

Mackenzie has increasingly targeted Brooks’ professional and personal history. The pair have traded cease-and-desist letters and put each other “on notice” for further legal action because of ads each of them have aired in recent weeks.

Mackenzie claimed Brooks filed his cease-and-desist to give himself cover to pull out of the debate. The Republican had been challenging Brooks to debate him for months — a move usually reserved for political challengers who need to gain some ground in the polls, not incumbents.

“While Bob Brooks pulls out of debates, Congressman Mackenzie is meeting voters where they are — knocking doors, walking in parades, attending community events, and rallying volunteers,” said Mackenzie spokesperson Arnaud Armstrong, who said the lawmaker was not available for an interview.

Brooks, in the interview, said he was prepared and eager to debate but didn’t want Mackenzie to have a stage to “continue to pour his venom.”

Justin Simmons, a Lehigh County Republican who served alongside Mackenzie in the state House and briefly ran against him in a 2017 congressional race, called the incumbent a “ruthless” campaigner. Though he voted for Mackenzie in 2024 — when the Republican beat a three-term Democratic incumbent by 1 percentage point — Simmons said he’s voting for Brooks this year.

“I’m a lifelong Republican… I just don’t really like the campaign Ryan’s running against Bob,” said Simmons, whose former district is now represented by Mackenzie’s mother, State Rep. Milou Mackenzie. “Just knowing Ryan, I served with him for 10 years or so in the House, this is kind of like what he does.”

With Mackenzie doubling down on the attacks — in the second-most expensive congressional race in Pennsylvania, with $31.8 million in ad spending — part of the race might come down to whether those ads break through.

“I’ve heard some things about [Brooks’] family and stuff, so that was kind of off-putting to me,” said Gunnar Zeiner, a 21-year-old student at East Stroudsburg University who said he plans on splitting his ticket for Mackenzie and Shapiro. He said he’d seen Mackenzie’s negative ads and also believed he was “a little bit more bipartisan” than others in Washington.

Before the Iran war and the spike in gas prices, the escalation of tariffs, and the expiration of healthcare tax credits for millions of Americans, Trump’s campaign to assuage voters’ economic anxieties and keep his grasp on Congress started with a rally at a Mount Pocono casino.

“What a job you’re doing,” he said as singled out U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a Republican who narrowly beat a six-term Democrat in 2024 to represent the region. “Young. Handsome. Central casting. Great job. Thank you very much, Rob.”

Nearly a year later, Trump hasn’t returned for a major campaign rally there or anywhere in Pennsylvania, even in the heat of the campaigns this fall. And Bresnahan, polls show, is behind.

The 8th Congressional District voted for Trump by 8.5 percentage points two years ago — the most of any of Pennsylvania’s four swing districts. But the president’s approval rating in the district has sunk to 43%, and Bresnahan is trailing Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti by 5 percentage points, according to the Inquirer/New York Times/Siena survey.

The race has been defined, including in the home stretch, by themes of corruption and who has a claim to having local roots.

Cognetti — one of the most prolific fundraisers of any candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania this election cycle — and her allies have unleashed a relentless messaging blitz around Bresnahan’s stock trading while in office.

She’s targeted Bresnahan for quickly becoming one of the highest-volume stock traders in the Capitol.

Bresnahan, a former CEO of his family’s electrical contracting company, reported more than 600 trades totaling more than $7 million in his first seven months in office. Some of the trades involved investments in areas regulated by lawmakers, and they came as members of both parties increasingly raised alarm about concerns of insider trading.

Bresnahan has said he does not personally decide the trades in his portfolio, which have halted almost entirely since the public criticism last year and Cognetti’s multiple ads that blast the message. The latest poll showed voters trusted her more than Bresnahan to handle corruption issues.

“I feel like this campaign is never going to end. I feel like this is just our lives now,” Cognetti said at a candidate forum on Friday hosted by the local chambers of commerce, adding that the audience soon wouldn’t “have to see my face on your screen and your television screen every single day.”

At the forum — which came before the only scheduled debate, set for Thursday — Cognetti also criticized Bresnahan for voting consistently to allow Trump to continue attacking Iran and to implement tariffs, and for supporting the president’s signature legislation that cut future funding for Medicaid to pay for tax cuts.

Bresnahan didn’t target Cognetti once at the forum. He highlighted his efforts to bring federal funding into the district, prop up local healthcare systems and leverage his relationships with Trump administration officials.

“Everything we do is with Northeastern Pennsylvania’s best interest in mind, and I look forward to being here again in two years,” said Bresnahan.

Dan Naylor, chair of the Republican Party of Lackawanna County, said he’s known Bresnahan’s family for decades and believes the lawmaker “has a tremendous future because he’s intelligent and he’s not afraid to articulate the things that he needs to.”

He also thinks the criticisms of his stocks have been blown out of proportion.

“It’s not that he’s actually sitting behind his desk every day looking at, ‘What stocks do I have?’ And, ‘Do I know anything about it?’ Or, ‘Can I trade today?” Naylor said. “He’s not that person. I think people understand that.”

In a traditionally Democratic district where Trump saw some of his greatest gains in 2024, both candidates have also occasionally leaned into criticisms of their own parties.

Bresnahan has collected support from organized labor and urged his party to do more to support unions. Cognetti, who originally ran for mayor as an independent, has an ad that claims she “stood up to Democrats in Harrisburg and Washington” to advocate for more funding for police.

“I love it, honestly,” Megan Kocher, chair of the Luzerne County Democratic Party said of Cognetti’s independent messaging, which she said is reflective of a needed culture change in the party. “Paige’s willingness to challenge corruption wherever she sees it is a breath of fresh air.”

Staff writers Michelle Baruchman, Al Lubrano and Anna Orso contributed reporting.