Something smells fishy in our local 2026 Democratic Congressional primary. Let’s get it out in the open so we can clear the air.
Going into early summer, the shape of the Democratic primary for Congress here in Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District looked fairly straightforward. To folks like me who are close watchers of Congressional action and campaigns, it appeared that County Commissioner Bob Harvie was firmly in the ‘favorite lane,’ if for no other reason that he has already won not just one but two countywide elections … and he increased his vote margin significantly in the four years between his runs. And political newcomer Robert Strickler was taking the ‘outsider lane,’ bringing enthusiasm and an earnest attitude, but no experience in politics.
All that was set on its head in August, when a third challenger entered the race. Tracy Hunt’s candidacy announcement came via the Philadelphia Inquirer. That piece told the story of a newly converted Democrat who was fed up with what President Trump was doing, and decided – in 2025 – to change parties from Republican to Democrat, and immediately run for Congress. The Inquirer story also shared details of a past suspension of his law license, and mentions his work at the Bucks County law firm Begley, Carlin & Mandio. That name rang a bell, and the story seemed a bit weird – not many people who have such a stain on their legal career would then decide to run for office, so I decided to go digging.
What I found shocked me.
My first place to do research was in the publicly available voter information, a database anyone can access for a small fee to the Pennsylvania Department of State. That Voterfile information shows when a person has voted, and in primaries it indicates what party ballot a person used. So the info does not tell you WHO a person voted for, but it does say IF you voted. I figured that a person so uncomfortable with Trump would surely have a voting history that gave evidence to that claim.
What I found is that Mr. Hunt does not display a broad streak of civic duty or awareness in his voting history. He only voted in seven of the last 30 elections! Not only that, but despite being a Republican voter in 2016, 2020 and 2024, Mr. Hunt didn’t even bother to vote in the Republican presidential primary in those years – he didn’t show up to place a vote for Nikki Haley in 2024 or Ted Cruz in 2016 against Trump in past cycles.
In fact, the last primary he participated in was in 2008. And yes, Tracy Hunt took the Republican ballot for that election.
Here you can see the last 15 years – that’s 30 elections – of voting data for all three candidates, so you can compare them head to head. The orange text represents no vote placed, and Tracy Hunt’s column has an awful lot of orange in it.
That dismal voting history made Mr. Hunt’s story of a deeply felt civic-duty and a conversion because of President Trump’s actions a bit hard to swallow. And so did Mr. Hunt’s behavior in the months since his announcement. He does not seem to be active with the Democratic organizations since his conversion. And as the co-leader of a large local resistance group, I can tell you that while Mr. Hunt contacted us in the days before No Kings 2 to attempt to get a speaking role at our event (nearly a month after our speaker line up was set, because we are organized), he certainly did not reach out to volunteer in actions against Fitzpatrick that our group has planned. He also doesn’t seem to be very busy fundraising. Mr. Hunt’s FEC filing is lackluster at best, with under 75 people having given him money. One of the largest donations is a loan he made to himself. And if Mr. Hunt is actively hosting events, the invitations for them are not going out to the most involved Democrats or activists in our area.
So what is Mr. Hunt doing?
It was at that point I followed the thread of Mr. Hunt’s employers, the law firm with a name that I found vaguely familiar. The reason that I found the name familiar is because shortly after I myself changed my party affiliation from Republican to Independent in the 2000s, I started my new future as a non-Republican by volunteering for then-Congressional Democratic candidate Patrick Murphy, doing phone banking out of his Bristol campaign office. And it was during that Democratic campaign that I became familiar with Begley, Carlin & Mandio because it was another of their employees who inserted himself into that congressional election, by questioning the military record of Patrick Murphy. That BC&M employee tried to swiftboat the man who eventually became the first Iraq War veteran to be elected to Congress, and who eventually became the Undersecretary of the Army (clearly there was no merit to the swiftboating claims).
This seemed like a weird coincidence, that one law firm would be the place who employed two separate attorneys who in two separate incidents were involving themselves in seemingly underhanded ways to negatively impact Democrats running in congressional elections here in Bucks County … at least until I started to look at who works currently or once worked at the law firm of Begley, Carlin & Mandio.
In perusing their list of current attorneys, first I came across Pamela Van Blunk. She’s a Republican who lost to Bob Harvie in the 2023 County Commissioner’s race and then lost again in her 2025 bid to hold onto a row office position. Then I came across Republican State Senator Frank Farry on BC&M’s list of attorneys. That’s the same State Senator Frank Farry who asked our Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick to be the best man at his wedding, so it seems fair to say that there is a deep personal relationship there.
And then I found the real kicker. The late former Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, brother of our current Congressman and the Republican who represented this district for four terms is also a former Begley, Carlin & Mandio attorney.
That’s a lot of coincidences, isn’t it?
So which of these scenarios seems more likely?
Behind Door A we have a Republican attorney with a past legal suspension on his employment record who decided out of some spirit of resistance to Trump to change political parties and immediately run for Congress, while never taking any serious actions to build support for his campaign in a primary?
Behind Door B we have an employee (with a spotty record) of the law firm that was the home of Brian Fitzpatrick’s brother, and also of an elected Republican lawmaker for whom Brian was the best man at his wedding, a firm that has had previous attorney employees who have engaged in shady behavior in past congressional elections here in Bucks. And this man with these suspicious connections changed his political party and entered the Democratic primary simply to provide a new target upon whom ‘the favorite’ candidate is going to have to spend some of his money in the primary… because every dollar that the eventual Democratic primary winner spends in the first phase of the election season is a dollar that isn’t spent opposing Brian Fitzpatrick in the general election?
I can’t tell you what to think. But it smells to me like something rotten is happening behind Door B.
And you know who else thinks that? The Republican National Campaign Committee. Because they gave up the strategy that seems to be at play in the same article that launched Mr. Hunt into this election season.
So take the door of your own choosing. Just beware of what you are going to find when you open the door that leads to Tracy Hunt and his deeply suspicious primary run for Congress. And if you want to be sure that a Democrat wins this coming 2026 congressional election in PA-01, you will shut that door in the face of Tracy Hunt and the cynical strategy that I believe appears to be underway … unless you are on board with the devious plan to drain Bob Harvie’s campaign coffers before the general campaign begins.
This column expresses the views of its author, separate from those of this publication.
