Hakeem Jeffries will visit Bucks County to boost Bob Harvie as battle for the gavel descends on Pennsylvania

With one month left and an expanding map of battleground districts across the country, the fight for control of the U.S. House has arrived in Pennsylvania in full force.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries — battling it out for the gavel come January — were both kicking off the final push of Pennsylvania’s midterm elections this week, signaling the Keystone State’s importance in determining party control of the chamber, which Republicans have held since 2023.

Jeffries will visit Lower Bucks on Saturday to give a high-profile boost to Democrat Bob Harvie in his challenge against Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the Bucks County-based 1st Congressional District.

The Democratic leader will appear alongside Gov. Josh Shapiro, marking the Democratic governor’s second weekend in a row in Bucks. Shapiro’s visit to Langhorne last week intensified the attention on the 1st District when he stumped for Harvie and other Democrats in competitive downballot races that could have determinative outcomes.

Jeffries’ visit follows Johnson’s time Tuesday in each of the four competitive Pennsylvania districts that Republicans are trying to defend, including a private meeting with Fitzpatrick in Bucks and public events with the other swing-district Republicans. The House speaker’s Pennsylvania stops launched a seven-state tour this week, as Democrats expand the districts they are targeting across the country and the GOP goes on the defensive.

Johnson’s and Jeffries’ respective affiliated campaign organizations, meanwhile, are spending millions of dollars to flood the Pennsylvania airwaves in the coming weeks. That includes a new, nearly $1 million cash infusion for Harvie — a sign that Democrats see potential for a nationwide blue wave to oust Fitzpatrick after several failed attempts.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, for its part, has invested $120,000 in partnership with Fitzpatrick, who also has his own massive war chest, as the group prioritizes three other competitive districts in the state.

“We’ve seen this in past wave conditions where triage starts to happen,” said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Lehigh University. “It becomes a math game. How much do we have left in resources? Where is it going to make a difference?”

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who has led the House since 2023, is trying to defeat the odds and preserve a narrow majority as a largely unpopular president from his party sits in the White House.

On Tuesday, he went to a Harrisburg diner and college campus with U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R., York), a diner and Fraternal Order of Police headquarters in Bethlehem with U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R., Lehigh), and a rally at a local Hazleton business with U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R., Luzerne). Johnson’s office confirmed he also met with Fitzpatrick, though they did not hold a public campaign event and Fitzpatrick’s campaign did not return a request for comment.

Though he votes with President Donald Trump and his party most of the time, Fitzpatrick is the last remaining Republican representing a Philadelphia suburb — one of the swingiest in the state. It is a political dynamic that has let him distance himself from Johnson and Trump more than any other GOP lawmaker from the state — or in the country — as he runs on a record of bipartisanship in a district that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024.

Even in the other three competitive seats that Trump won, Johnson’s appearance is a risky maneuver, Borick and others say.

Sam Chen, an Allentown-based GOP strategist, worked for a candidate whom Mackenzie defeated in the Republican primary two years ago. He said the freshman lawmaker is a “formidable campaigner” who could benefit from any fundraising and get-out-the-vote message from a national figure like Johnson. But it might be only a “moderate” benefit considering voters are largely unhappy with Republican messaging on issues like affordability and the war in Iran, he said.

“I don’t think Mike Johnson is the right spokesperson for this. I don’t think the administration at all, or anyone in Republican leadership, has messaged this correctly,” Chen said. “They’re doing it the same way Joe Biden messaged it back when Harris lost in ’24. So [Johnson serving as a campaign surrogate] could backfire in that it might drive some Democrats to vote.”

Democrat Bob Brooks, the Lehigh Valley firefighter and union leader running against Mackenzie, was an early focus for the party as Jeffries and Shapiro rallied in support of the candidate in July, with the House leader declaring the 7th as the key place to kick off Democrats’ final 100 days of battle for the midterms.

The race, long considered a toss-up by nonpartisan national groups that evaluate elections, recently shifted to one that “leans Democratic,” according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. The change followed a Franklin and Marshall College poll that found Brooks leading Mackenzie 45% to 40%.

Trump’s worsening poll numbers, especially on economic-related issues, and voters’ frustrations have added to Democrats’ optimism in races they previously thought were out of reach — including in Senate and House seats long held by Republicans.

That optimism has filtered to Bucks County, where Fitzpatrick’s brand has made him popular among Republicans and Democrats. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm associated with Jeffries (D., N.Y.), has not helped fund a challenger to Fitzpatrick since 2020, but it now intends to invest about $900,000 to boost Harvie, according to a source familiar with the plans.

“Democrats now are thinking, ‘If we could be competitive in Nebraska and we could be competitive in Kansas and Texas, why can’t we be competitive in the Pennsylvania 1st Congressional District?’” Borick said. “Bucks County’s more amenable than Nebraska.”

Fitzpatrick is one of only three House Republicans in the country representing a district Harris won in 2024.

Before the latest shift in sentiment, it was unclear whether Harvie — a twice-elected Bucks County commissioner whom Democrats saw as a key recruit this year — would receive competitive levels of support. Previous campaign finance reports show he lagged in fundraising compared with the Democratic challengers in the other swing districts.

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick out-raised all candidates running in the four districts and has unleashed an unrelenting stream of ads targeting Harvie, a major shift from his previous campaigns. His campaign has allocated $4.5 million for ads from June through Election Day, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.

He spent a little more than $460,000 in total in his reelection bid two years ago. But as of this week, Democrats planned to outspend Republicans $8.4 million to $5.2 million through Election Day in the race — including Fitzpatrick’s spending — though reserved ad time in the next few weeks could change.

Out of more than $87 million worth of ads already spent or planned to be spent in all four races between June 1 and Nov. 3, the $13.6 million in the Fitzpatrick-Harvie matchup represented the smallest piece of that pie, according to The Inquirer’s review of spending tracked by AdImpact.

Where Johnson’s trip could help at this point, Borick said, is in fundraising — a strategy that became evident when Johnson said in a recent video that Mackenzie was running “one of the most important races in all of America” and Mackenzie immediately turned to asking viewers to donate through his website.

Videos that Johnson filmed with Bresnahan and Perry also aimed to lay out the stakes. Next to Bresnahan, the speaker called the contest in the Scranton-based district “one of the top five races in America.” Johnson, filmed in the Harrisburg-based district, nodded as Perry — a hard-line conservative — called the election “a choice between common sense and absolutely crazy.”

Perry faces a tough November rematch with former TV anchor Janelle Stelson, whom he beat by roughly 1 percentage point when Trump carried the state in 2024. And Bresnahan, who also won his seat narrowly last election, is running against Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in the closely watched race.

Eugene DePasquale, the chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said in a statement that Johnson’s visit showed the speaker was “doing everything he can to bail out the four members after they sold out their constituents to help him raise costs and cut healthcare.”

In the race between Mackenzie and Brooks, the $27.8 million in general election ad spending was more than twice the 1st District outlay. The GOP has allocated $17.1 million to that race, while Democrats have earmarked $10.5 million for the general election.

Jeffries’ visit will likely aim to boost Harvie’s campaign coffers. Chen, the Republican strategist, said it also would be wise for it to represent something of a course correction after Harvie’s ads have focused on attacking Fitzpatrick — who is largely popular — rather than highlighting the stakes of the race.

“Jeffries, if he’s smart, he’s going to come in and [say], ‘Hey, I know you might like Fitzpatrick. I know you guys might respect him. You respect that he calls out the president. But at the end of the day, we have to change the majority. Even if he’s a naysayer to the president’s agenda, it doesn’t help if we don’t have the majority,’” Chen said.

Staff writer Michelle Baruchman contributed reporting.