Paige Cognetti

Cognetti grew up in Beaverton, Oregon.[4] She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oregon's Clark Honors College with a B.A. in English literature and holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.[4] She worked as a fundraiser and project director on political campaigns, including Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, and then served in the Obama administration as a senior advisor to the Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department.[2][4]

Cognetti worked as an investment advisor in New York City, including briefly at Goldman Sachs, before moving to Scranton in 2016.[2][4] She served on the Scranton School Board from 2017 to 2018 and advised the Pennsylvania Auditor General on oversight of public school districts and care for older adults.[3][4]

In 2019 Cognetti ran for mayor of Scranton as an independent under the slogan "Paige Against the Machine" in a special election and became the first woman to hold the office.[2][3][7] Former mayor Bill Courtright later pleaded guilty, on July 2, 2020, to conspiracy, bribery and extortion and was sentenced to seven years in prison.[2][7] Cognetti was sworn in as mayor on January 6, 2020, and won re-election to a full term in November 2021.[4] She says that as mayor she turned down the city car and a pay raise and balanced the budget, ending a 30-year period of financial distress for the city; she lives in Scranton with her husband and two daughters.[3][4] She launched her congressional campaign in September 2025 and campaigned on an anti-corruption agenda that included a ban on congressional stock trading.[2][3][4] She won the November 3, 2026 general election with 54.5% of the vote to Rob Bresnahan Jr.'s 45.5%, according to unofficial results reported by NBC News.[1]