Ten years ago, a supervisory special agent for the FBI ran for Congress for a seat previously held by his brother and won.

Over the last decade, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, younger brother of Mike, has been a target for Democrats in a primarily purple Bucks County district. And four times since he has won reelection, defeating Scott Wallace (2018), Christine Finello (2020), and Ashley Ehasz (2022, 2024).

Now, Bucks County commissioner Bob Harvie is taking a run at the former attorney and special forces veteran. And Democrats are feeling as good as ever about the 54-year-old’s chances.

An internal poll obtained by PoliticsPA says that Fitzpatrick is struggling against Harvie with his numbers fading significantly since that 2018 race that the incumbent won by fewer than 8,000 votes.

According to the survey of 400 likely general election voters in PA-01, while Fitzpatrick holds a 48-42% lead over Harvie, the commissioner leads among non-conservative independents and Republicans by three points (44-41%).

Part of that is due to signs that Fitzpatrick’s personal popularity is waning. His favorability numbers come in at minus-3 (45-48%), while his job performance rating is minus-5 with 43% approving and 48% disapproving.

While only 1-in-4 respondents said they are familiar with Harvie, once the pollsters at Global Strategy Group shared more about the challenger, he forged a one-point lead (46-45%) over Fitzpatrick.

The Harvie campaign poll also shared more about the incumbent, particularly his record in Congress as a moderate who straddles the line between independent leader and a reliable vote for the GOP. With that information in hand, respondents supported Harvie by more than 10 points (51-41%) with those non-conservative independents and Republicans backing his campaign, 61-32%.

Harvie is making “kitchen table” issues the backbone of his campaign, as the question of “affordability” takes center stage in many state and federal races in 2026.

Affordability and the growing unpopularity of President Donald Trump and his policies also give Democrats what they see as an opening to win the region’s seat for the first time since 2011 as part of a Pennsylvania strategy to flip the U.S. House majority.

To quote late football coach Lee Corso, not so fast my friend.

“Bucks County, in particular, it’ll break your heart if you let it,” said Ehasz, who twice unsuccessfully ran against Fitzpatrick. She noted how momentum for her party ebbs and flows in the county, such as when Democrats swept the row offices in 2025.

“And then you get to the congressional seat and it’s like, all the brakes get put on,” Ehasz said to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Bucks is one of the most purple counties in the Commonwealth and will be a closely-watched battleground in the 2026 election.

Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win the county since the 1980s. Even with the expected coattails, former VP Kamala Harris still won PA-01 by 0.3 percentage points.

Standing tall through it all was Fitzpatrick who won by 13 points.

A year later, however, Democrats won countywide offices by about 10 percentage points for their largest win margin in a decade.

So what to make of it all?

The Harvie campaign, which still has to win the Democratic primary against grassroots candidate Lucia Simonelli, knows that it cannot just be the “I’m not Brian Fitzpatrick” candidate. It needs to stand for more and offer viable alternatives to those Fitzpatrick has championed during his decade in Washington.

He says he is running for Congress to fight for working families, strengthen the middle class, protect freedoms and restore fairness. The “kitchen table” issues include repealing the Trump tariffs, raising the federal minimum wage, reforming the tax code, investing in the American middle class, providing a quality, affordable education for all, and expanding affordable healthcare.

GSG said in its memo that “Harvie is well-positioned to win, if he has the resources to deliver his positive message and tell the real story on Fitzpatrick.”

Resources. Harvie has not been able to compete with Fitzpatrick on the fundraising front. That’s OK. Few have been able to.

Fitzpatrick raised nearly $865,000 last quarter and came into 2026 with $7.3 million on hand. That goes a long way in the expensive Philadelphia media market.

Yet Harvie, who raised a little over $370,000 last quarter, knows that conventional broadcast media is not the only way to get a message across to the constituents, noting alternative ways through cable and digital ads.

Fitzpatrick has tacked to the center in recent weeks, notable by his vote against the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill. But he also voted in favor of the SAVE Act, the controversial national voter ID bill.

He is also the only House Republican in the Commonwealth that has not received the endorsement of Trump.

“People know him, and that’s why he survives,” Pat Poprik, chair of the Bucks County GOP, told the Inquirer. “Both parties vote for him because he’s there and they don’t think of him as political, they think of him as governmental.”

But voters also see rising costs for groceries and gas with the average of of a first-time homebuyer rising to 41. And they might see Fitzpatrick as part of the problem, especially in a midterm cycle that usually sees the party of the White House resident see losses in Congress.

“Those are things that Trump has pushed, but they’re things Brian Fitzpatrick is responsible for regardless of if they’re Trump policies or not,” Harvie said to the Inquirer. “So I’m looking at the record Fitzpatrick put together, which is not one that’s helpful to people in this district.”

updated with proper attribution