This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s partnership with NOTUS, a nonpartisan news organization that covers government and politics with the fresh eyes of early career journalists and the expertise of veteran reporters.
Paige Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who Democrats hope will unseat Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan this November, has repeatedly pledged not to take money from corporate political action committees as a candidate or lawmaker.
“No Corporate PAC Money. As a candidate and member of Congress I will reject the influence of special interests,” Cognetti wrote on her campaign website.
But federal campaign finance filings show Cognetti has accepted donations from numerous political committees that themselves are awash in cash from corporate PACs, including money from defense contractor Boeing, banking giant JPMorgan Chase and insurance company UnitedHealthcare.
Many of the non-corporate political committees supporting Cognetti are leadership PACs operated by Democratic federal lawmakers to boost their party’s congressional candidates.
During her 2026 campaign to represent Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, Cognetti has, for example, taken $5,000 from Blue Hen Federal PAC, a committee sponsored by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware).
Coons’ committee has received hundreds of thousands of dollars this election cycle from a who’s who of corporate and trade association PACs tied to companies such as Visa, FedEx, Pfizer, Northrop Grumman, Eli Lilly, Google, McKinsey and Fox News parent Fox Corp., among several dozen others.
Cognetti’s campaign has also received $4,000 from the campaign committee of House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, which itself is partly bankrolled by numerous corporate PACs, including those sponsored by Delta Air Lines, Verizon, Allstate Insurance and law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird.
Cognetti took money from dozens of these leadership PACs that report significant corporate contributions — including the PACs of Rep. Ted Lieu, the House Democratic Caucus vice chair, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker.
“Paige is the only candidate in this race who does not accept donations from corporate PACs, supports a federal ban on corporate PAC donations, and will never be handed a corporate check in exchange for special access or political favors,” Emma Mustion, the campaign’s communications director, said. “The reason for her pledge is simple: Paige is independent and doesn’t work for anybody but the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Cognetti’s pledge to reject corporate PAC money has become a key feature of her campaign, and is cited in endorsements from advocacy groups such as End Citizens United and lawmakers including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona).
Campaign finance and other money matters are key issues in the race between Cognetti and Bresnahan. Cognetti has repeatedly hit Bresnahan, who accepts direct corporate PAC money, for his once-prolific stock trading — the multimillionaire with his own helicopter made more than 650 individual stock trades during 2025, according to federal records.
Among them, he traded stock in companies that manage Medicaid just before the House took its first vote on Republicans’ sweeping tax cut bill that slashed the program. He has also personally invested in artificial intelligence companies before advocating for data centers.
NOTUS previously reported that Bresnahan abruptly stopped trading stocks earlier this year. At the time, a spokesperson said a financial institution managed Bresnahan’s stock trades.
“Only a slick politician like Paige Cognetti would make a promise to reject corporate PAC money a centerpiece of her campaign only to find a loophole to accept it,” Samantha Bullock, a spokesperson for Bresnahan’s campaign, said in a statement to NOTUS.
Federal records show Cognetti had $3.4 million cash on hand, besting Bresnahan’s $2.6 million war chest, as of June 30. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race between Bresnahan and Cognetti as a toss-up. National Republicans and Democrats alike consider the race critical to winning a House majority in 2027.
Cognetti, for her part, continues to run on an anti-corruption platform that includes banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, instituting term limits for federal lawmakers, withholding lawmakers’ pay throughout government shutdowns and prohibiting members of Congress from making bets in prediction markets.
Other candidates have been criticized in the past for accepting similar contributions. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, now the governor of Virginia, campaigned on rejecting corporate PAC money while running for Congress in 2022 — and was slammed at the time for taking money from leadership PACs.