Beth Farnham

Beth Farnham is the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania's 13th District. A former credit analyst, pharmacy technician and Conewago Valley school board member who describes herself as a stay-at-home parent, she also ran against John Joyce in 2024. Her campaign materials emphasize democracy, reproductive freedom, affordability, universal health care and gun safety.[1][2][3]

Beth Farnham grew up in Maryland and graduated from Annapolis Senior High School.[1][2] Her campaign website says she is the child of an HVAC technician and a nurse, spent most of her childhood in a row home in Baltimore and attended public schools.[1][2] She earned an associate degree from Anne Arundel Community College in 1992 and a bachelor's degree from Towson University in 1996.[1][2] Her campaign website describes her degree as Biology, French and Secondary Education and says she put herself through college as the only member of her immediate family to graduate.[1][2]

Farnham worked her way through college as a pharmacy technician, including at a fertility pharmacy, and later worked as an administrative assistant for a lift-equipment company and as a credit analyst for Bank of America, according to a 2024 WPSU interview.[4] She describes herself as a stay-at-home parent (13 years as of her 2024 interview).[1][2][4] She says she and her husband, Rob, were Republicans before moving toward the Democratic Party after 2016, and that she registered as a Democrat in 2019.[1][2][4]

Farnham served on the Conewago Valley School District board, representing Region 2, and left office in 2023.[1] She won the 2024 Democratic primary with 98.8% of the vote and lost the general election to Joyce, 25.8% to 74.1%.[5][1] Unopposed in the May 19, 2026 Democratic primary (32,428 votes), she is running a second time against Joyce, and the Altoona Mirror reports her platform includes raising the federal minimum wage, a national health care plan and reproductive-freedom legislation.[1][3] According to her campaign website, she and her husband married at Gettysburg Presbyterian Church, settled in Adams County and are raising their children there; Ballotpedia lists her residence as Conewago Township.[1][2]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.