Heated rematch between Scott Perry and Janelle Stelson in Pa. could decide the House. Voters couldn't be more passionate

Alfred Lubrano, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Oct 14, 2026

Published in Political News

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HARRISBURG, Pa. — Just outside Hershey on a brisk October morning, Adam Kraut delayed breakfast at the Cocoa Diner in Dauphin County to vent about politics.

“I despise Scott Perry,” Kraut, 52, said of the incumbent Republican lawmaker who is running for reelection in the 10th Congressional District in south-central Pennsylvania.

“He’s an election denier who supports the war in Iran,” said Kraut, an independent voter from York who works in sales.

Kraut said he is backing Perry’s Democratic challenger, former TV anchor Janelle Stelson, in her second attempt in two years to unseat Perry, a close ally of President Donald Trump who has been in office since 2013.

“A fresh, inexperienced person might be a good thing,” Kraut said.

In Cumberland County that same morning, Monica Molsky viewed the landscape differently.

“I call Stelson ‘the crazy lady,’” said Molsky, 59, a Republican who works as a house cleaner in Carlisle.

“She’s never been elected, and she doesn’t have decent values, because she’s pro-abortion, anti-gun. Perry has good, conservative values.”

As the second Perry-Stelson contest enters its final days before the Nov. 3 election, voters across the district expressed passionate opinions like boxing enthusiasts eager for a rematch between two brawlers. The two candidates are set for a televised debate at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Harrisburg’s abc27.

The district — which covers Dauphin County, as well as portions of Cumberland and York Counties — is one of four in the state that could determine control of the U.S. House. In 2024, Perry won by just 5,133 votes, or 1.2 percentage points.

Unlike last time, however, this election will also be a referendum on the first two years of the second presidency of Trump, who won the district over then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 by more than 5 percentage points.

“I’m a three-time Trump voter. I won’t support Stelson,” said Republican Ken Chamberlain, who works in medical sales in Shrewsbury, York County. “She won’t keep our country safe from immigrants like Trump does, and she has no experience.”

But Perry’s ties to Trump may not be as beneficial this time around.

A September poll from Franklin and Marshall College found that 57% of voters in the district thought Trump had done a poor job as president, compared with only 27% who said he had done a good or excellent job. And 59% said Trump’s policies have hurt them somewhat or a lot.

That survey gave Stelson a 3-percentage-point edge on Perry.

“I can’t vote for Perry because he’s MAGA and he supports and voted for Trump’s war,” said Democrat Kristian Bracken, 33, a caregiver in Dauphin Borough, Dauphin County. “Now gas and grocery prices are up.”

Stelson has centered her message on the cost of living, with campaign events at gas stations and a TV spot highlighting the increased price of a hamburger. It’s a shift from 2024, when Democrats were on the defensive about inflation with Joe Biden in the White House.

Neither Perry, 64, nor Stelson, 66, agreed to speak to The Inquirer ahead of Wednesday’s debate.

For Republican Scott Wallace, 86, from Hampden Township, Cumberland County, his understanding of Perry comes from a personal place. Perry is a family friend under whom Wallace’s son served when Perry was an Army National Guard brigadier general, Wallace said.

“I’ve known Scott 20 years,” Wallace added. “He’s down-to-earth and totally honest, whereas Stelson doesn’t have a clue. She’s a liberal puppet of Nancy Pelosi.”

Pelosi, the former Democratic House speaker from California, is retiring from Congress at the end of the term and has not been involved in the 10th District race.

Aware of Perry’s service in the military, Heath Copeland, a nurse and Army veteran from Camp Hill in Cumberland County, believes the lawmaker has not honored the principles of a service member.

“He broke his oath as a member of the military when he supported the Jan. 6 insurrection,” said Copeland, 48, a Democrat.

U.S. military officers take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Copeland said.

Perry was not accused of participating in the mob violence of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But he led the effort to contest Pennsylvania’s electoral votes within hours of the riot. And the House select committee investigating the attack accused him of strategizing portions of the plan to overturn the 2020 election.

Perry was never charged with a crime.

Also a veteran, Brian MacPherson, 84, of Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, voted early for Stelson. MacPherson, a Democrat who ran malls in Texas, served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.

“I go for Democrats because I’m against Perry,” MacPherson said. “I couldn’t tell you anything positive that Perry did.”

MacPherson said voting for Stelson felt like voting against Trump.

“I have big disrespect for that man, and it’s spelled I-R-A-N,” said MacPherson, who said he was upset when he learned that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier spent 265 consecutive days at sea in the Middle East.

“I was never at sea more than three months,” he said. “That’s way too long for those sailors.”

Like MacPherson, Gerald Cunningham, 59, a retired state worker from Carlisle, voted early. But he went for Perry.

“He’s a commonsense guy,” said Cunningham, a former Democrat who switched to the GOP.

“Democrats care about illegal immigrants more than American citizens,” he said. “People wonder how a guy like Trump becomes president. It’s because Democrats are that bad.”

While he is not a staunch supporter of Stelson, Democrat Kevin Hancock, 59, from Harrisburg, said he is voting to unseat Perry for his role in supporting the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which resulted in people losing or facing the loss of healthcare and SNAP benefits.

“Perry’s done all he can to undo the safety net,” said Hancock, a healthcare consultant. “Ironic, because Perry says he was raised on SNAP. At least Stelson supports programs that help people.”

With three weeks until Election Day, what “becomes clear in the campaign is that nothing seems clear at all,” said Tom Graham, 83, a Republican and part-time school worker. He added that endless political commercials of candidates “slinging mud” have grown tiresome.

“I’ll vote for Perry,” Graham said. “But in the end, it becomes hard to determine what’s truth and what’s mud anymore. I can’t wait till this thing is over.”