Former Democrat Running in PA Republican Primary for U.S. House Seat Against Former Trump Official

Michael Marsicano, who has run as a Democrat for Congress multiple times, is attempting another run for Congress as a Republican for the second time, against a former Trump official who barely lost in 2020 against Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA).

In Pennsylvania’s primary election next month, Marsicano is running against Jim Bognet, who worked in President Donald Trump’s administration to help create manufacturing jobs to rebuild America’s industrial heartland.

But, Marsicano reportedly ran twice before in 2016 and 2018, both times as a Democrat in Pennsylvania’s Eleventh Congressional District. Both times he was unsuccessful in his bid.

Then, in 2019, Marsicano switched political parties from a registered Democrat to a registered Republican before he announced his bid for Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District to run against Cartwright in the 2020 election, according to his voter registration records, reviewed by Wilkes-Barre Times Leader.

In the 2020 election, he only received 12.9 percent of the primary vote, less than half of Bognet’s 28.4 percent of the vote in the primary. Currently, in the midterm election cycle, he’s attempting to run against Cartwright again, but he will first have to make it past next month’s primary election against Bognet.

However, while Bognet openly called his time in the Trump administration one of the “greatest honors” of his life and was proud to attend the president’s 2020 Republican nomination acceptance speech at the White House and had Trump’s endorsement in 2020, Marsicano is far different.

During the 2016 presidential election cycle, Marsicano did not want to endorse the former president. He called himself a “conservative Democrat” but still said he would not endorse in the presidential election. Instead, he ran against former Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA), who openly supported the former president and his policies at the time.

During a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday, Bognet hammered Cartwright for being a “rubber stamp” to the Democrat policies he hopes to end if elected to Congress. He said that November’s midterm election will “come down to freedom versus total government control of every aspect of our day-to-day life.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.