Giving voters a fair shot at a good life is a priority for Rebecca Prendergast.
Two months ago, the independent candidate launched her campaign joining opponents Republican Craig Staats and Democrat Les Mavus in the race for the Pennsylvania 145th House District, an area covering 107 square miles from Telford to Riegelsville.
“I’m a mom, an entrepreneur, and somebody who has spent much of my adult life getting involved when something in my community needs attention. That’s how my campaign began too,” she said. “Eventually you must decide whether you’re going to keep saying, ‘Someone should do something,’ or whether you’re willing to be one of the people who steps forward. I decided to step forward.”
Soon after entering the race, Mavus dropped out to support her.
“Ultimately I decided to drop out and endorse Rebecca’s campaign because she has shown significant interest in improving the community in the past and is looking to protect it and create a better quality of life for all members of the 145th moving forward,” he said in an email.
What drew Prendergast into the race?
Her decision to run wasn’t about filling somebody else’s vacancy or becoming a replacement for one of the parties. She entered because she believed voters deserved a different choice.
“I kept looking at the problems people around me were talking about: property taxes, utility bills, groceries, healthcare, childcare, schools, and developmental change in the community and then looking at Harrisburg and thinking‘Why does so much political energy seem completely disconnected from what families are talking about at their kitchen tables?’”
Her experience
Growing up sweeping wood shavings off the floor of her father’s factory in Coopersburg shaped her view of how the world worked.
“As a kid, that sounds like an ordinary chore. Looking back, I realized I was learning something much bigger. A business isn’t an abstraction. It’s someone’s paycheck. It’s the family depending on that paycheck. Its customers who depend on you to deliver. It’s people making decisions every day about whether they can hire somebody, replace a machine, absorb another expense, or keep the doors open.”
Her father’s work as a mining engineer resulted in the family living abroad during her younger years, an experience that has had a lasting impact.
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“The greatest gift I have received from my father’s job has been the ability to travel and experience the world. I have learned so much through the lifelong friendships I made while living abroad. More than anything I have seen real poverty, the likes of which we do not see here in the United States. I’ve seen American NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) do amazing things to help those in need and I’ve also seen political turmoil in other countries firsthand. Living abroad has made me infinitely proud of the United States and understand how lucky I am to have won the birth lottery as an American.”
As an active member of her local community and raising four children (ages 8-18) with her husband, Prendergast is in touch with the needs of families and seniors and is dedicated in the pursuit of real solutions to kitchen table problems: to lower costs of groceries and gas and utilities, to enable young people to buy homes and older folks to stay in theirs.
“Most people don’t need somebody to make a speech about their problems—they need someone to solve it,” she said. “My community work, including helping neighbors during the vaccine rollout, is part of why service matters to how I think about public office.”
Other examples of her community work include serving on the board of Hair of the Dog, a non-profit animal rescue group, mentoring young women as a member of the Junior League of Lehigh Valley and donating as much as 3000 pounds of produce, grown from seed on her farm in Springfield Township.
Once a Republican
Prendergast had at one time been a registered Republican but over the years she became uncomfortable with the direction of the party. January 6 was a turning point. She said that watching the attack on the Capitol was disturbing, but, for her, the political response afterward mattered just as much.
“I could no longer reconcile what I was watching with what I believed responsibility, constitutional government, and accountability were supposed to mean. That’s the point when I realized I couldn’t remain in the party.”
While she may have changed parties, her values remain the same.
“Leaving a political party doesn’t require you to throw away every value you once associated with it. It forces you to examine those values more carefully,” she said. “I believe government should be careful with people’s money. Small businesses and entrepreneurs are essential to healthy communities. I believe decisions should be made locally whenever that makes sense rather than automatically assuming Harrisburg or Washington knows best. I believe people should have substantial freedom to make decisions about their own lives. And I believe government must be accountable for what it does.”
“When elected, my first responsibility isn’t to a caucus, a party chair, or a national political agenda. It’s for the people of the 145th District.”
For Prendergast, running as an Independent does not mean standing in the middle of every issue. It’s about knowing exactly who she works for.
“When elected, my first responsibility isn’t to a caucus, a party chair, or a national political agenda. It’s for the people of the 145th District,” she said. “There will be issues where I agree with Democrats. There will be issues where I agree with Republicans. There will probably be plenty of times when I may disagree with both. I want to be able to make those decisions based on what is happening here in Upper Bucks.”
The Republican incumbent, Craig Staats, who is seeking a 7th term, has historically voted the party line.
“I respect the fact that voters have sent him there repeatedly, but I also think incumbency should come with accountability. After that much time, voters have every right to look at the condition of their community, look at a representative’s record, and ask whether they are satisfied with the results.”
On Data Centers
While she acknowledges AI has enormous potential in the fields of medicine, science, education, business and the way people work, Prendergast is in favor of guardrails before acceleration when it comes to data centers. That’s why she is proposing the Pennsylvania Responsible AI Development Act or PaRAID (rhymes with “parade”), a comprehensive proposal that is built around four principles: compute cost, safety and accountability. It examines a temporary pause on new hyper-scale AI data center approvals while electricity, water, infrastructure and public safety rules are established.
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“I’m not proposing that PA ban ordinary AI, prevent small businesses from using it, or stop responsible innovation. But when we’re talking about frontier AI and enormous data center developments, I don’t believe Pennsylvania should race ahead first and figure out the consequences later.”
Affordability
While a state representative can’t set the price of eggs, milk or a gallon of gas, Prendergast believes what Harrisburg can do is look at the major expenses that government directly influences and stop adding unnecessary pressure to family budgets, property taxes being one example.
“Pennsylvania already provides more than $1 billion annually in broad-based state property-tax relief, and the Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program provides eligible older Pennsylvanians and people with disabilities rebates of up to $1,000, with supplemental relief available for some households. We should make sure people who qualify receive those benefits and continue examining ways to protect seniors from being taxed out of homes they’ve spent decades paying for.”
Citing utilities as another example, she said, “When a huge new industrial electricity user comes onto the grid, I believe existing homeowners and small businesses should not be expected to subsidize the infrastructure necessary to serve it. The PUC’s new large-load framework and the debate surrounding HB 1834 demonstrate that Pennsylvania already recognizes this question.”
For Prendergast, the rule should be simple: growth should pay its own way, not transfer costs to people who had no part in creating them.
Because healthcare and childcare make up a large part of family budgets, Prendergast wants every proposal in Harrisburg viewed through an affordability lens: does it reduce a family’s cost, or are we simply moving the bill somewhere else?
“Three of my children are currently in school, so this hits home. I want strong public schools, good teachers, safe buildings, meaningful special-education support, and pathways that recognize college isn’t the only definition of success,” she said. “Pennsylvania’s current budget directs substantial new funding through the state’s adequacy and tax-equity formulas, including a $565 million increase in those areas for 2026-27.”
Prendergast wants to continue moving toward a system where the quality of a child’s education isn’t determined primarily by the property wealth of the community where that child happens to live.
“There’s an affordability connection there too. When Pennsylvania pays an appropriate state share of education costs and directs funding responsibly, local taxpayers aren’t asked to carry as much of the burden.”
Who are Prendergast’s role models? Whose work is she most inspired by?
“As for role models, I think the people who inspire me most are often not famous politicians. They’re the local officials, teachers, firefighters, EMTs, volunteers, nonprofit leaders, and neighbors who show up year after year. They don’t get cable-news interviews. Most people will never know their names. But they’re the reason the community functions and why I am running.”
The midterm elections are November 3, 2026. Vote.
