Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti defeated U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr. on Tuesday, flipping Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District back to the Democrats after one term in Republican hands.

Unofficial returns gave Cognetti 152,583 votes, or 54.4%. Bresnahan, a first-term Republican, took 128,081 votes, or 45.6%. The margin was 24,502 votes.

Cognetti claimed victory Tuesday night before supporters in Scranton, flanked by her family. Bresnahan conceded Wednesday.

“I promise you that I will do the job the way it is supposed to be done for you,” Cognetti said.

The mayor told the crowd the result arrived faster than she had expected.

“I still am not quite sure that I’m really standing on this stage, because I didn’t expect this to happen so quickly, if it happened at all,” Cognetti said.

She said the campaign’s closing argument came from voters she met across the district. At a summer event in Pike County, she said, a man with Parkinson’s disease stopped her to talk about federally funded medical research. Cognetti recounted his words: “I have lived 20 years longer than I thought because of research funded by the federal government, and it is my deep, deep fear that the cuts this administration is making is going to make it very hard for the next generation of Parkinson’s victims to get better.”

She said other voters raised health coverage and retirement benefits.

“It’s the folks that come to me that say that their special needs family member no longer has health insurance because of the cruel cuts that have been made,” Cognetti said.

She also described a Scranton woman worried about her Social Security and how she will manage the next few years.

“We can’t wait to solve these problems. We can’t wait until the very last minute, and we can’t play politics with these decisions,” Cognetti said.

The mayor cast the night’s results as a national verdict.

“The American people are begging and begging and begging for reform,” Cognetti said. “They are begging for results, and that is what we are going to get them in a new Congress.”

Bresnahan congratulated Cognetti in remarks to supporters and said the campaign left nothing in reserve.

“We left it all in the field,” Bresnahan said.

The congressman said his campaign held more than 1,000 events in the district.

“We did every single thing within our power to be successful in this,” Bresnahan said. “Over the last two years, the amount of friendships that were developed with each and every one of you in this room has been so moving, so impactful and so powerful.”

Bresnahan said he accepted the outcome without stepping back from the region. “The voters of Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District thought differently, but that doesn’t change our fortitude to fight on behalf of northeastern Pennsylvania, to continue to fight for our home,” Bresnahan said. “When the sun rises tomorrow, we’ll put our boots back on and go back to battle fighting.”

The seat has changed hands twice in three years. Bresnahan, a Republican from Dallas Township, won it in 2024 by unseating Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright.

Cognetti has served as mayor of Scranton since 2020. She first won the office in a 2019 special election.

The 8th District covers a stretch of northeastern Pennsylvania and was among the most closely watched U.S. House races in the state.

Cognetti is set to take office in January.