Posted on 08/11/2026 5:57:15 AM PDT by lightman
Rep. Scott Perry opened up the home stretch of his re-election campaign taking dead aim at progressive Democrats he says will ruin America.
Never mind that Janelle Stelson, his opponent in Pennsylvania’s 10th District House race, has consistently portrayed herself as a centrist, more comfortable with the political middle than the extremes.
Perry, at a rally of Cumberland County Republicans at a Hampden Township restaurant Monday night, said Stelson, if elected to a new Democratic majority in the House, would be no more than a cog in a very dangerous machine.
“These crazy people that are running (on the Democratic left) that want to confiscate your property, that want to make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. a state, that want to pack the (Supreme) court, that want to have a wealth tax?
“Those are the people that are going to be calling the shots,“ Perry said Monday. ”And she (Stelson) is going to be doing what she’s told, believe me.”
Stelson’s campaign pushed back hard on Perry’s assessment when reached by PennLive Monday night.
“Janelle Stelson will oppose terrible ideas from socialists - like open borders and defunding the police - with just as much vigor as she opposes many terrible ideas from Congressman Perry - including his opposition to the new bipartisan affordable housing bill, and his support for a national abortion ban,” campaign manager Alma Baker said.
Perry was joined by House colleague Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who garnered attention this year for helping lead the effort to oust two House members - California Democrat Eric Swalwell and Texas Republican Tony Gonzales - from office based on allegations of sexual misconduct.
Luna is now working on, among other things, trying to force disclosure of House accounts she says have been used to settle sexual harassments claims lodged against members.
Perry has been a true ally in that and other fights, Luna said, adding she cannot say the same about all of her colleagues.
“I’m tired of members of Congress going to Washington promising to fight for things, only to turn around when things get tough and stab their own constituents and the American people in the back,” Luna said.
“That is not who this man is. He will fight for you. He will be in the trenches with us, and we need him to get re-elected.”
After those opening remarks, Perry opened the floor to his supporters for a spirited Q&A session that covered topics ranging from data centers and the international race to harness artificial intelligence to the last month’s House vote on a bill banning personal stock trading by members of Congress.
Stock trading ban
Perry and Luna both highlighted their support for the stock trading ban passed by the House, and called on the Senate to take up the bill so it can get to President Donald J. Trump’s desk.
During a press gaggle after the rally, the pair were asked if they felt Congress should also tighten rules on the president’s ability to profit from office, in light of recent financial disclosures that President Trump personally reported more than $2 billion in earnings from cryptocurrency, memecoin and other investments in 2025.
Trump has said he is hands-off on his family’s business interests, but his administration is also very directly involved in setting formative government policy in the crypto arena.
Perry said Monday he and Luna could only vote on the bill that made the House calendar.
“All the bills that I have signed on to have been bipartisan, and some of them included the executive branch and I was okay with that, too,” Perry said.
“We both fought for multiple bills, and this is the one that was available to us, and we fought hard to get it on the floor and it passed.”
Perry also stressed he’s always put his money where his mouth is on the issue.
“I don’t own one stock. I never have,” Perry said.
“I told my wife when we decided that I would run for office, it’s about serving. I’m never going to have my constituents wonder whether I voted for something so that I could pad my own checkbook. And I’ve lived that.”
Data centers
Perry, like a lot of politicians in 2026, walked a fine line on the data center issue, arguing the United States does need enough hyperscale facilities to ensure it leads China in the development of artificial intelligence tools.
But he also said the campuses need to be sited in the right places, and they need to built in a way that protects the local environment and host communities.
In the end, Perry expressed confidence that, with appropriate oversight by state and local officials, that can be done.
“This is the United States of America. We can do it better, more cleanly than anybody else on the planet. And we should demand that, right? But we should not take a back seat to China... because whichever country wins will bury the other country because the other country can never catch up.”
He also advanced an argument that rising electricity costs lay mostly at the hands of liberal Democrats’ “green agenda... This is all being done because they want you to have windmills and solar and nothing else is allowed,” Perry said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro - an avowed all-of-the-above energy supporter - has rejected that characterization, blaming regional power grid monitor PJM for moving too slowly in bringing new power sources online.
Election security
Perry and Luna, to cheers Monday night, also doubled down on their support for Trump’s election reform bill that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, and voter ID at the polls.
Critics have argued the bill throws up new barriers that will disproportionately harm low-income and non-English speaking voters.
But Perry said the current system is essentially an honor system in an world where not all people are honorable.
“There are people that will lie, and there are people that will cheat. And so we can’t use the honor system on our elections any more than we use the honor system on anything else that requires people to follow the law,” Perry said.
Perry, of course, has drawn fierce national scrutiny for his role as one of the top Congressional supporters of Trump’s election subversion efforts in 2020.
Perry, seeking an eighth term in the House, and Stelson are facing off in a rematch of one of the closest House races in the nation from 2024.
This year, it has been classified by Cook’s Political Report as one of just 19 toss-up races out of 435 nationwide.
The 10th District is comprised of all of Dauphin County, most of Cumberland County and the roughly the northern half of York County.
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Perry, one of the most vilified Repbulicans in Congress by the Democraps had his District gerrymandered at the most recent redistricting; going from solidly red York and Adams Counties to blue Dauphin and purple Cumberland.
He narrowly defeated Stelson in 2024.
Pennsylvania Ping!
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Janelle Stelson is a left-coast (Washington State) carpetbagger who acquired name recognition as the many-year evening news anchor on Lancaster-based WGAL-8.
RE: Dems and Socialists accused of being crazy.
Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now
song by Starship.
Let them say we’re crazy, I don’t care about that
Put your hand in my hand, baby, don’t ever look back
Let the world around us just fall apart
Baby, we can make it if we’re heart to heart.
And we can build this dream together
Standing strong forever
Nothing’s gonna stop us now.
Penn live is obviously just another Dem advocacy group. Of course it is.
Lol!
“....let the world around us just fall apart!...”
LA Mayor Bass, is smiling and nodding in approval.
FTA: “Never mind that Janelle Stelson, his opponent in Pennsylvania’s 10th District House race, has consistently portrayed herself as a centrist, more comfortable with the political middle than the extremes.“
IOW, she’s running the Virginia left-hook play from Spamberger’s campaign: talk “centrist”, get elected then pull the immediate left turn.
Yep Stelson is running the Virginia con and Penn Live is helping her sell it.
Perry’s district was first gerrymandered by the Pennsylvania Democrat Supreme Court (PADSC), violating state legislative control of redistricting, back in 2018.
And even though the GOP still controlled the PA legislature at the time of the most recent redistricting in 2021, all Governor Commie Tommie Wolf had to do was pick up his “veto pen” and send things over to the PADSC again.
The PADSC took their gerrymandered 2018 map as a starting point — and then screwed Republicans even harder.
Republicans did very well — fluke alert! — in 2024 in PA when McCormick took the Senate seat, Trump won the state, Perry narrowly prevailed in CD-10, and Republicans finally defeated 2 liberal House incumbents in marginal districts (CD-7, CD-8) in eastern PA.
As in Michigan, the GOP is on the brink of major disaster in PA in 2026. The only difference between these two extremely similar (politically) Rust Belt states is that there is no Senate election in PA this year.
Joshie Shapiwo (liberal D successfully posing as a moderate and fooling thousands of idiots) will cruise to at least a 15-point victory in the PA Governor race, Republicans may lose as many as FOUR U.S. House seats, led by Perry’s ouster (also CD-7, CD-8 and possibly CD-1).
Democrats narrowly hold the state House (102-101) and are at least 95% certain to continue to do so. They need to pick up 3 state Senate seats to take 100% control of PA state government. The over-under is about +3.5 Senate seats for the Rats.
I’d rather see Grace Slick in her prime. Which I did when the Jefferson Airplane played on June 30, 1967 in Detroit. Great show.
True story. She is a blood relative descendant of one of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She was invited under her maiden family name Wing to the White House to meet with President Richard Nixon at a recenption.
She was influenced by Yippie antiwar activist Abbie Hoffman to secretly carry LSD to slip some into Nixon’s food or drink. Turned out she never had the chance and left without incident.
The left and most independents, (closet leftists), can’t handle such direct talk. It offends their tender sensibilities.
It will be interesting to see how those useless cucks deal with sharia law as it’s imposed on them.
The Stelson reply is such a dodge. The response to confiscation of property, DC and Puerto Rico statehood, packing SCOTUS, and a wealth tax is being against open borders and defunding the police.
In other words Perry is correct.
EC
That your opponents are “crazy” is not a serious argument for yourself.
People don't know what cogs do in machines. Call him "an enabler."
Moderate Democrats is a Socialist Democrat that campaigns as a someone who loves America!! Once in office...they become what they are SOCIALIST!!
“Critics have argued the bill throws up new barriers that will disproportionately harm low-income and non-English speaking voters.”
I don’t see this as a problem. More of a solution.
“Critics have argued the bill throws up new barriers that will disproportionately harm low-income and non-English speaking voters.”
I don’t see this as a problem. More of a solution.
Janelle the “centrist” is like being lukewarm and waiting to be spit out.
No matter the topic/matter/situation, there is either aligned with God, or not.
I know it’s not easy, nor popular in some cases, but God created everything including us and it’s best to do things His way, before He calls you to meet Him.
You’re related to Grace? Wow. It’s a small, small world!
......Perry, at a rally of Cumberland County Republicans at a Hampden Township restaurant Monday night, said Stelson, if elected to a new Democratic majority in the House, would be no more than a cog in a very dangerous machine......
If the Democrats gain the majority in the House, the crazy “Noo” Socialists will be calling the shots! Vote Republican!
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