The mayor is challenging Republican Representative Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District race.
Crime is spiking in Scranton, where Democratic mayor Paige Cognetti is challenging Republican Representative Rob Bresnahan for the seat representing Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District.
During the 2025 mayoral debate in Scranton, Congnetti was questioned on crime statistics in the city.
“You can go to the actual crime database; you can check those stats online and see that crime is in fact not spiking in the City of Scranton. You can see by every single type of incident what that looks like.”
Previously, in 2020, Cognetti said in an interview that she would like Scranton to be a city where police officers do not carry firearms.
“I do want to get to a point where we don’t have to worry about any officers having holsters or guns in them. That is ideally where we get in our whole country,” she said during the 2020 interview.
In 2024, a news outlet reported that Scranton residents were concerned about rising crime. During an interview the same year, Cognetti said that the “situation where these things keep happening,” in Scranton is “really tough to swallow.”
The interviewer pointed to statistics that revealed rising violent crime, including gang violence. “Those are stark numbers. They’re also still relatively low compared to unfortunately what some cities suffer,” Cognetti replied during the 2024 interview.
A spokesperson for Bresnahan said that Cognetti “has repeatedly shown a stunning disregard for the safety of her constituents, including the very law enforcement officers sworn to protect them.”
“She downplays rising gang violence and murders, wants to disarm the police, and was recently caught partying in New York City just days after the brutal machete murders of two women and a service dog devastated the community.”
“Time and again, Mayor Cognetti refuses to get her priorities straight. The people of Scranton deserve better,” said the spokesperson.
