Pennsylvania's four House battlegrounds lean Democratic in final poll as Shapiro leads Garrity

Pennsylvania may help decide which party controls the U.S. House. Four of its districts are among the most closely watched in the country, and the last public poll of all four shows Democrats ahead in three and a tie in the fourth. All four leads are inside the poll's margin of error.

At the top of the ticket, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has led Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity by double digits in every major public poll this fall. Shapiro is using his lead to campaign for Democrats down the ballot. He says he wants his party to win the state Senate for the first time since 1992.

Polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Mail ballots cannot be processed until Election Day, so close races may take time to count.

The four House districts

The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena University polled each of the four districts in October. PoliticsPA published the results and methods. The Times's own results page blocked our access, so the figures below come from PoliticsPA and the Inquirer.

• 1st District (Bucks County and part of Montgomery County): Democrat Bob Harvie, a Bucks County commissioner, 48%. Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick$, 46%.
• 7th District (Lehigh Valley): Democrat Bob Brooks, 49%. Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie$, 44%.
• 8th District (Scranton and northeastern Pennsylvania): Democrat Paige Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton, 51%. Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, 46%.
• 10th District (Harrisburg area): Republican Rep. Scott Perry$, 48%. Democrat Janelle Stelson, 48%.

• Democrat
• Republican

0%

20%

40%

60%

PA-01 Harvie v FitzpatrickDemocrat: 48%Republican: 46%

PA-07 Brooks v MackenzieDemocrat: 49%Republican: 44%

PA-08 Cognetti v BresnahanDemocrat: 51%Republican: 46%

PA-10 Stelson v PerryDemocrat: 48%Republican: 48%

PA-01 Harvie v FitzpatrickPA-07 Brooks v MackenziePA-08 Cognetti v BresnahanPA-10 Stelson v Perry

Source: PoliticsPA on the NYT/Inquirer/Siena polls

Show the numbers

District	Democrat	Republican
PA-01 Harvie v Fitzpatrick	48%	46%
PA-07 Brooks v Mackenzie	49%	44%
PA-08 Cognetti v Bresnahan	51%	46%
PA-10 Stelson v Perry	48%	48%

How the poll was done. Interviewers spoke with about 400 likely voters in each district between Oct. 16 and 22, for 1,607 in all. The polls used live interviewers by telephone. More than 99% of respondents were reached on cellphones. Voters were drawn from the voter list. The results were weighted so that groups less likely to answer polls, such as people without a college degree, count in proportion to their share of voters. The margin of sampling error is 5.7 to 5.8 points in each district and 2.9 points for the four districts combined.

That margin matters. A 2-point or 5-point lead with a 5.7-point margin of error is not a clear lead. The poll is best read as showing four close races, with Democrats slightly better placed in three of them.

Across the four districts combined, voters preferred a Democrat for Congress by 49% to 46%. President Trump's approval was 19 points underwater there: 39% approved and 58% disapproved. Shapiro's approval in the same districts was 61%, with 34% disapproving.

Ratings and the stakes

The forecasters lean the same way. Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, moved the 1st District from "toss-up" to "leans Democratic," the Inquirer reported Monday. The Inquirer said the Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report both rate all four districts "leans Democratic." We covered Cook's late shifts in our story on its Oct. 30 House ratings.

Three of the four seats are held by Republicans who are newer to Congress or who won narrowly. Mackenzie and Bresnahan are freshmen who flipped their districts in 2024. Perry faces Stelson in a rematch of their 2024 race. Fitzpatrick is the exception. He has won the Bucks County seat easily for a decade. The Inquirer describes him as one of the few moderate Republicans left in Congress who has broken with Trump. His family has held the seat for most of the past two decades. His late brother, Mike Fitzpatrick, represented it before him.

The last day in Bucks County

Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, campaigned with Harvie in Lower Bucks County on Monday. So did former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. "The path to the majority in the House of Representatives runs right through Pennsylvania, and right through Pennsylvania One," DelBene said, according to the Inquirer.$

The Inquirer reported that the DCCC and other national Democratic groups sent significant money to Harvie's campaign in the final month. Harvie said his approach in the home stretch was to keep running "like you're behind."

Fitzpatrick held no major public events Monday, the Inquirer reported. Republicans held a final rally in Newtown with state party leaders, including Auditor General Tim DeFoor and party Chairman Greg Rothman. The Inquirer noted that Bucks County could also decide control of the state Senate.

Reilly Richardson speaks for the National Republican Congressional Committee. He said in a statement that the party's Pennsylvania nominees were in a "strong position." He said that was because they "successfully fought for the priorities the American people elected them to enact."

"Voters in Pennsylvania have a clear choice," Richardson said. "While Republicans are running commonsense, battle-tested incumbents who have delivered results for their communities, Democrats have nominated radicals whose far-left, high-cost, tax-and-spend agenda would be a disaster for working families."

Judge rejects Fitzpatrick's election-board suit

On Oct. 29, Fitzpatrick sued to remove Democratic County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia from the Bucks County Board of Elections. The board runs the county's election and certifies its results. The suit said she had shown "animus" toward his candidacy because of her public support for Harvie. At Monday's hearing, Fitzpatrick's lawyer showed the judge video of her leading a "fire Fitz in '26" chant at an October rally for Harvie, the Inquirer reported. He also showed a clip from a 2024 meeting at which she said "precedent by a court doesn't matter anymore in this country." That meeting came during a dispute over undated mail ballots. The Northeast Times, citing WHYY and the Inquirer, reported that she later apologized for the remark and said it had been taken out of context.

On Monday, Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey R. Sommer declined to remove her. Sommer, who is from Chester County, was brought in from outside Bucks to hear the case. "Petitioner has asked this Court to perform a significant alteration of the election governance process based upon supposition and opinion," he wrote in his one-page order, the Inquirer reported. "Without statutory authority we decline."

The judge said state election law allows an election official to be removed only for being unqualified, being on the ballot, or being impeached, according to the Inquirer. It does not cover the conflicts of interest Fitzpatrick alleged.

Fitzpatrick's lawyer, Geoffrey R. Johnson, said the campaign was disappointed. He said the judge had "said nothing that condones Commissioner Marseglia's hyper-partisan activities." He added that the judge had "left the door open to address the bias issue before the Board of Elections on issues that may arise." Bucks County Solicitor Dan Grieser had argued that the commissioner has a First Amendment right to back a candidate. He said she had certified Republican wins throughout her time on the board. Harvie's campaign accused Fitzpatrick of trying to create "doubt in our election process because he is afraid he is going to lose."

Harvie, also a county commissioner, stepped back from the election board when he began his campaign. The board is chaired by Judge Jordan Yeager. Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo also sits on it.

Shapiro and Garrity

The governor's race has not been close in public polling. The table below shows the most recent statewide polls we could confirm in the pollsters' own releases.

How these polls were done. Research Co. surveyed voters online. Its margin of error is 4.6 points. Franklin & Marshall drew its sample from a voter list supplied by the data firm Aristotle and interviewed people by phone or online, as they preferred. Its margin of error is 4.1 points for all registered voters and 5.6 points for likely voters. Quinnipiac used live interviewers calling landlines and cellphones. Its margin of error is 3.9 points.

Research Co. reports decided voters only, so its two figures add to 99. Research Co. weights by age and gender using census figures. Franklin & Marshall weighted by age, gender, education, region, vote history and party registration. In the Quinnipiac poll, Libertarian Ken Krawchuk had 2% and 5% did not choose a candidate.

In the four House districts, the Times/Inquirer/Siena poll found Shapiro ahead 56% to 39%. That figure covers only those four districts, not the whole state.

Quinnipiac found Shapiro viewed favorably by 55% of likely voters. Only 22% had a favorable view of Garrity, and many had no opinion of her. Franklin & Marshall found the same gap in name recognition: 42% of registered voters said they did not know enough about Garrity to have an opinion.

Closing pitches

Shapiro and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis ended a 10-day bus tour that began Oct. 24 in Erie. The Northeast Times, citing WHYY, reported that the tour stopped in 29 counties. At a Doylestown rally for Harvie on Oct. 31, Shapiro said, "I don't want a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. I want a check on Donald Trump."

He finished Monday in Montgomery County, where he lives. If Democrats win both chambers of the legislature, he said, his top goals would be raising the minimum wage, writing abortion rights into law and increasing money for mass transit. "I'm fighting hard across this commonwealth to win that trifecta, so that we can do good for other people," he said, according to the Inquirer.

Shapiro has also faced questions about a possible 2028 run for president. When the subject came up at a Monday event, he said: "All right, let's ease up here. My wife's here. I don't want her hearing that kind of stuff."

Garrity campaigned in Altoona and at Penn State over the weekend on her "Turn Around PA" tour, with running mate Jason Richey. According to the Centre Daily Times, as summarized by the Northeast Times, she promoted a program for first-time homebuyers and a plan to cut electricity bills by 20%. She also backed a rule that students who cannot read by third grade would not move on to fourth grade. Asked about the minimum wage, she said: "I'm open, absolutely open, to having a conversation about it, but my main focus is to grow the economy."

Mail ballots

As of the morning of Oct. 29, Pennsylvania had received 965,837 mail and absentee ballots out of more than 1.3 million requested, according to state figures reported by the Keystone Newsroom and the Northeast Times. That is a return rate above 70%.

Of the returned ballots, 629,099 came from registered Democrats, 243,338 from Republicans and 93,400 from independent or third-party voters. These numbers show the party registration of voters who sent ballots back, not how they voted. Democrats in Pennsylvania have used mail voting far more than Republicans since 2020, so a Democratic lead in early returns is expected and does not predict the final result.

Pennsylvania does not let counties process mail ballots before Election Day. In Philadelphia, workers will begin opening them at 7 a.m. Tuesday and work around the clock until done. Unofficial results will appear on the state's election returns site after polls close. Provisional ballots and military and overseas ballots are counted later.

"Carefully counting ballots takes time, and county elections officials rightly prioritize accuracy over speed," Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in a statement, asking voters "to be patient as the process unfolds."

The Justice Department has said it will send election monitors to Philadelphia polling places. We explained the limits on what federal monitors can do in our story on DOJ election monitors.

Money in the 1st District

Fitzpatrick's campaign committee had raised about $8.0 million in the 2025-26 cycle through Oct. 14, according to Federal Election Commission totals we retrieved Monday. It had spent about $11.7 million, more than it raised this cycle, and had about $709,000 in cash on hand. About $2.7 million of its receipts came from other political committees, including PACs.

Among the PAC gifts in FEC records, the Transport Workers Union's political committee gave $15,000 across three contributions. The Air Line Pilots Association PAC gave $10,000. These are campaign contributions, not proof of influence over any vote.

Harvie's campaign had raised about $3.2 million and spent about $2.8 million, with about $409,000 on hand, according to his FEC filings. These totals do not include spending by party committees or outside groups, which has been heavy in this race.

Differing perspectives

The candidates for governor offer different plans for the cost of living. Shapiro points to a higher minimum wage, abortion rights and new housing. Garrity points to more natural gas production, lower utility bills and property tax cuts. The perspectives section below sets out each campaign's case in its own words.

The wider picture

Both parties' House campaign committees have treated Pennsylvania's four districts as central to the fight for the majority. Polls nationally have moved toward Democrats in the final weeks, as we reported in our roundup of the final national polls. Early voting has also run ahead of 2022 in several states, as we found in our early-vote analysis.

Results for each race will appear on our race pages for the governor's race and the House districts linked above. Profiles of Josh Shapiro and each incumbent are also linked above.

How we reported this

We read the Franklin & Marshall, Quinnipiac and Research Co. releases ourselves. The Times/Inquirer/Siena district results and methods are from PoliticsPA, because the Times results page blocked our access. Quotes from Monday's events are from the Inquirer. Weekend campaign details are from the Northeast Times, which credits WHYY, the Centre Daily Times and WPSU. Mail-ballot figures are state data as of Oct. 29, as reported by the Keystone Newsroom. Fundraising figures come from the FEC's public API and cover each candidate's main campaign committee. Some poll figures have been reported differently elsewhere. For example, one widely shared table lists Franklin & Marshall's registered-voter result, 52% to 30%, rather than its likely-voter result. We used likely-voter results where the pollster released them. See our methodology for how we handle polls.

Differing perspectives

How should Pennsylvania's next governor make life more affordable for working families?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Expand energy production and cut utility and property taxes

  Who holds it: Republican nominee Stacy Garrity and her campaign

  Garrity argues that Shapiro's energy policies and spending have driven up utility bills and pushed residents out of the state. She would lift the ban on new drilling sites and call a special session to speed permits for gas, pipelines and power plants. She says this would cut utility bills by 15% to 25%, partly by rolling back or ending the gross receipts tax on utilities. She would also cut property taxes by one-third within two years, help first-time homebuyers and audit state agencies for waste and fraud.

  In their words: Stacy Garrity for Governor ↗

• Raise wages, protect rights and build more housing

  Who holds it: Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his campaign

  Shapiro argues that Trump's tariffs and policies have raised costs for Pennsylvania families, seniors and small businesses. He wants to raise Pennsylvania's minimum wage, which he says Republicans have blocked for 15 years, and is working to flip the state Senate to pass it. He also wants to create more jobs, especially in agriculture, write abortion rights into the state constitution and carry out a large plan to build new housing and repair older homes.

  In their words: Shapiro for Governor ↗