PA · Candidate
Paige Cognetti
DCandidate
On the ballot Nov 3, 2026: U.S. House · Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District
Biography
Paige Cognetti is the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania's 8th District and the Mayor of Scranton. She grew up in Beaverton, Oregon, worked in the Obama administration and as an investment advisor, and moved to Scranton in 2016. After serving on the Scranton School Board she was elected mayor in a 2019 special election, running as an independent, and took office in January 2020. She launched her congressional campaign in September 2025 and is running on an anti-corruption agenda that includes a ban on congressional stock trading.[1][2][3]
Cognetti grew up in Beaverton, Oregon.[3] 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.[3] 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.[1][3]
Cognetti worked as an investment advisor in New York City, including briefly at Goldman Sachs, before moving to Scranton in 2016.[1][3] 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.[2][3]
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.[1][2][4] Former mayor Bill Courtright later pleaded guilty, on July 2, 2020, to conspiracy, bribery and extortion and was sentenced to seven years in prison.[1][4] Cognetti was sworn in as mayor on January 6, 2020, and won re-election to a full term in November 2021.[3] 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.[2][3]
- 1.Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti launches run for Congress, blasting Rep. Rob Bresnahan's stock trading · The Philadelphia Inquirer · 2025-09-02 News report
- 2.Paige Cognetti · Ballotpedia · 2026-10-21 Reference
- 3.About the Mayor · City of Scranton · 2026-10-21 Official record
- 4.Bill Courtright · Wikipedia · 2026-10-21 Reference
Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.
