“The secret to Cartwright’s success, despite his party’s ups and downs in the region where Biden was born, is as simple, he says, as the tagline in all of his TV ads, ‘I work for you.’”
Congressman Matt Cartwright is the only House Democrat running for re-election to have won a Trump district in 2016, 2018 and 2020. He has achieved this by staying focused on the issues that matter most to the members of his district, while never sacrificing the values of northeastern Pennsylvania to align with national political trends.
Read the full article from HuffPost here. Highlights below:
How Rep. Matt Cartwright, A Progressive Democrat, Survives In Trump Country
- “Cartwright is the type of member in a tight district who understands that people want very commonsense things like lower drug prices, increased Social Security benefits — things that people agree on,” [progressive activist Alex] Lawson told HuffPost. “It’s so basic that it’s hard to understand that it’s rare in D.C.”
- The secret to Cartwright’s success, despite his party’s ups and downs in the region where Biden was born, is as simple, he says, as the tagline in all of his TV ads, “I work for you.”
- Cartwright told HuffPost he wins people over by “doing things that show that my top allegiance is to northeastern Pennsylvania before party before anything else. And it’s not just showing — it’s the truth.”
- It helps that Cartwright has a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. His campaign shared a list of federal grants he has secured for the district, including $16.6 million for a science and cybersecurity research facility at the University of Scranton, $4.1 million to increase home internet access for local public school students, and $3 million for a new public safety and fire building in Moosic, the Scranton suburb where Cartwright lives.
- And while Cartwright is no Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), he has also been willing to buck progressive environmental orthodoxy if it conflicts with what he sees as his constituents’ best interests. A clear case study is his support for the construction of a new $6 billion natural gas refinery in Luzerne County. The refinery would take shale gas extracted from northeast Pennsylvania through hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — and turn it into gasoline suited for cars and trucks.
- Williams, an anti-Trump Republican who is leaning toward voting for Oz in the Senate race, is a fan of Cartwright’s. He credits him with helping secure federal financing for a milk processing plant in the area. “He does good for here,” Williams said. “At least you can visit with him and talk to him.”
- “With the midterms coming up, I’m sure he’s slammed busy,” Hughes said. “But yet he took the time out away from his family on a Sunday afternoon to come and sit with me. Says a lot about the man.”
