Democrat Bob Harvie is running to unseat Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District, but the available polling offers little reason for confidence. While some surveys show a close race, an increasingly conspicuous feature of Harvie’s campaign suggests that his team may be feeling some serious pressure.
In at least two advertisements, Harvie has presented known Democrat activists as ordinary voters who simply support his campaign in Pennsylvania’s 1st District. It is a curious strategy for a candidate seeking to project broad, organic support, and a troubling look for a campaign that apparently could not find even one ordinary voter willing to publicly endorse him without reaching into the local Democratic political apparatus.
PA-01 POLL - Fitzpatrick (R) internal
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 17, 2026
🟥 Brian Fitzpatrick (i): 51%
🟦 Bob Harvie: 42%@POStrategies | 9/11-14 | 400 RVhttps://t.co/l8rTGRHjXj pic.twitter.com/uxBhf84X8J
Take Patti Kearins, identified as “Patti Kearns” by the Harvie campaign, who appeared as a concerned voter in one of Harvie’s mail pieces. What the campaign neglected to mention is that Kearins has been heavily involved with the Bensalem Democratic Organization, a group explicitly devoted to electing Democrat candidates and advancing their positions. She also appeared in Pennsylvania Democrat Party advertisements attacking Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who Harvie is running to unseat.
The same pattern appears in a Harvie social-media post featuring Manuel Galarza as a “Trump voter.” Harvie did not disclose that Galarza frequently promotes Harvie’s campaign and is active with Bucks County Indivisible, an organization that describes its mission as organizing resistance activity in the swing district and is part of a broader movement formed to oppose the GOP agenda and elect progressive candidates.
Harvie is, of course, free to use Democrat activists in his ads. But the campaign should stop pretending that they are ordinary voters who just happened to support his candidacy because they are so impressed with his campaign. If Harvie’s best evidence of support is a Democratic organizer and an Indivisible activist, voters in the 1st District may reasonably ask what happened to all the regular voters.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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