The Janelle Stelson Endorsement
Janelle Stelson is Scott Perry's biggest electoral threat yet
During the 2022 cycle, Welcome identified the top Democratic overperformers in supporting Will Rollins and Adam Frisch. Since then, we’ve worked to perfect a formula for how Democrats can take on and beat MAGA incumbents in districts that the party’s formal machinery doesn’t deem competitive, in an effort to build out an expanded “Red to Blue” target list. Give or take a few elements, we’ve found that this formula boils down to three critical components: a center-right district, a villainous extremist Republican, and a dynamic moderate Democratic challenger who elevates all that is wrong with MAGA – and right with Democrats.
Recently retired local news anchor Janelle Stelson in Pennsylvania's 10th congressional district, a former Republican who is arguing for “commonsense problem-solving,” fits the mold, and we’re thrilled to add her to this year’s Win The Middle slate as she takes on extremist Scott Perry.
“I’m reaching out to Democrats, Independents, and Republicans who Congressman Perry has ignored and disrespected, to make the case for commonsense problem-solving, instead of extremism and chaos,” Stelson said in a statement on election night, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
This is a Welcome candidate.
At first glance, PA-10 appears to be just outside of the range of districts Democrats can successfully contest (Trump won it by 4.1 points). But flawed incumbents can put the unlikely within reach, and Perry is one of the vulnerable Republicans we’re planning to take down this November.
Welcome Track Record of Picking Overperformers And Our Process
Welcome has an excellent track record of finding the races that pundits and race-raters miss. In 2022, we targeted two races, Colorado’s 3rd and California’s 41st — districts that pundits and race-raters said were “safe” Republican seats. We recognized that the incumbents, Lauren Boebert and Ken Calvert, are embracing the politics of the extremist right, which don’t represent the interests or sentiments of their constituents.
Adam Frisch and Will Rollins are two moderate, pragmatic Democrats committed to welcoming people into the Democratic coalition – not to turning voters away with purity-test politics. With strong candidates like them, these districts became tightly contested battlegrounds. Frisch’s strong performance led Boebert to seek employment elsewhere in a more reliably Republican district, while CA-41 has become one of the most closely contested races in the country.
This year, we put together a group of advisers from the center-left and center-right. We solicited input from dozens of practitioners and analysts. We pored over national data and talked to on-the-ground experts to deepen our analysis of the races. We followed local media to determine which incumbents were getting out of touch with their districts.
We look for those aforementioned criteria as we continue to build out our slate of endorsements for the 2024 cycle:
Under-the-radar districts. It’s a fact: politicos understate the variance in politics. This leaves them vulnerable to missing districts that are outside of the traditional bounds of party competition, races like Boebert’s and Calvert’s as well as races like Alaska’s At-Large seat that Mary Peltola won, Jared Golden’s Maine district and Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez’s Washington seat.
Non-traditional Democrats who welcome independents and moderates. The theory that you can “mobilize” your way to victory has been a proven failure everywhere it has been tried. The path to victory is distinguishing yourself from the national brand of the Democratic Party and welcoming moderate Republicans and independents into the anti-authoritarian coalition.
Extremist incumbents. To pull moderate voters into the Democratic Party, we need a push in the form of extremist Republicans. That’s why we look for Republicans who are out of touch with their voters, pushing voters to consider moderate options. Rendering themselves even more beatable, extremists like Lauren Boebert have made the districts they represent ripe for disruption with their antics.
Pennsylvania’s 10th has every one of these crucial components.
Why Janelle Stelson Will Overperform
Janelle Stelson is a household name in this media market, and it showed in her decisive victory in last week’s primary election. As a journalist and news anchor for 38 years and registered as a Republican until early last year, Stelson couldn’t be closer to the people of PA-10. The Welcome team met with Stelson and her team as she geared up for and ultimately launched her campaign in October 2023. Stelson has raised more than $700k since launching, with $110k of that pouring into her campaign’s warchest in the 24 hours after her Democratic primary election win. Her recent victory also earned her the support and endorsements from both of Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators, Bob Casey and John Fetterman.
Stelson’s entry into the race last year prompted the Cook Political Report’s re-evaluation of the race, noting that “Perry is financially and legally weaker now than he was then, and Stelson could be his strongest opponent yet.”
The District
PA-10 will be one of the tightly-contested districts that will determine the 2024 House majority. The district voted for Trump by 4.1 points, but in 2022, Democratic superPACs spent $0 on the district.
In 2022, Gov. Josh Shapiro won the 10th congressional district by 12 points, while congressional candidate Shamaine Daniels lost by 7.5 – one of the highest differences between statewide and congressional candidates in the country. In 2018, Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Tom Wolf narrowly won this seat (Casey is up again in 2024).
At the start of last year, PA-10 was rated “Solid Republican,” but this year, it’s rated as only “Lean Republican,” indicating that the ratings agencies are catching up to how Welcome views this race. Additionally, we’re expecting big dollars on the Democratic side to pour into the district, with House Majority PAC reserving $2.4 million in the Harrisburg media market this fall.
The Incumbent
Scott Perry is one of Congress’s biggest supervillains. The current representative of Pennsylvania's 10th and former Chair of the Freedom Caucus, Perry was an active participant in the insurrection intended to overturn the results of the 2020 election. According to texts released as part of the January 6th investigation, he shared YouTube videos claiming voting machines had been manipulated by satellite and attempted to convince Trump to fire acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with a conspiracy theorist. A former Trump White House aide testified that Perry was “central” to planning the insurrection. Perry may be called as a witness in the Georgia election interference case, which could also drain his campaign of hundreds of thousands or even millions in legal bills.
As the then-leader of the extremist House Freedom Caucus, Perry also played a key role in pushing the government to the brink of a shutdown, leading conservatives to oppose the budgets, putting the funding of veterans at risk. He was the only Pennsylvania representative to vote against the bipartisan deal that prevented the shutdown. Perry has also supported extreme anti-abortion laws and led the effort to prevent the military from covering travel expenses for service members seeking an abortion.
Perry is spending a significant amount of cash on legal bills ($275,000 according to the latest report), leaving him only $513,460 of cash on hand (lower than the $541,000 he had when Cook Political Report downgraded his chances).
As we noted in last year’s “Putin’s Man in Pennsylvania,” he also once admitted to doctoring sewage reports related to the illegal dumping of sludge on the bank of a local creek, and was placed into the “Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition probationary program for first-time nonviolent offenders.”
Welcome has been hard at work in the district since last fall, with WelcomePAC leading a "Republicans Against Perry" effort noting that Perry was one of just 21 House Republicans to vote against awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to the Capitol Police who responded to the Jan. 6 insurrection. A poll commissioned by Welcome last year also found Perry’s approval rating at just 34%.
Join Us
Scott Perry is an extreme insurrectionist who has no business being an elected member of Congress. His shenanigans have already landed him in hot water with the Department of Justice, but lack of a competitively funded challenger last cycle prevented him from facing real electoral scrutiny. Now, with Janelle Stelson in the race, he faces a legitimate, healthy-for-democracy challenge, with groups like “Republicans Against Perry” creating a fecund environment for an upset.
You can contribute to Janelle via our Win the Middle slate.