PA-7 Dem rivals take aim at Brooks in wake of his bombshell claim about 2024 state treasurer race

In the wake of reporting by Axios that Bob Brooks, the Lehigh Valley Democratic Congressional candidate, related an unflattering 2024 election story involving his political patron, Gov. Josh Shapiro, several of Brooks’ rivals for PA-7 seized on the episode to gain political advantage in the hotly contested race. 

Brooks has frequently been cited as a front-runner for the governor's handpicked candidate to challenge vulnerable GOP incumbent Ryan Mackenzie in PA-7. But he came under sharp criticism from two of his Democratic primary rivals, Carol Obando-Derstine and Ryan Crosswell, after Axios quoted Brooks telling a Lehigh University audience that Shapiro covertly boosted the 2024 reelection bid of Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. 

Shapiro reportedly did so as a retaliatory move against Garrity’s Democratic opponent, Erin McClelland, whose comments about Shapiro’s weakness as a potential vice-presidential candidate reportedly irked the governor.

On Sunday afternoon, Axios included recordings confirming its reporting on how Brooks, who heads the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters’ Association, related the episode to a Lehigh University audience last Wednesday. 

“Josh Shapiro had requested because Stacy, er, Erin McClelland came out hard about something on Josh Shapiro, and really, the Democratic Party as a whole turned on Erin McClelland,” Brooks said, according to the Axios report. “And he said, 'I would like you guys to endorse Stacy Garrity.'" 

Once the comments were made public, Brooks attempted damage control, saying in a statement: “I misspoke and made an inaccurate comment." 

On Monday, he elaborated to City & State in an email that “many people in our party – including organized labor across the Commonwealth – were upset with McClelland's bad faith attacks against our Governor. The Governor did not ask my union to make any endorsements." Brooks further clarified that McClelland did not apply for an endorsement from the firefighters’ union in the 2024 race.

The episode transpired within hours of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee highlighting Brooks as one of its latest Congressional candidates chosen as fundraising priorities for the party’s “Red to Blue” program – a list of the 20 Republican-held districts the party views as most vulnerable, and is targeting to flip Democratic in November.

Manuel Bonder, the communications director for Shapiro’s reelection campaign, responded to the episode in a post on X late Sunday night. “We and Bob Brooks have made very clear this is very inaccurate and not what happened. Ridiculous for that fact to get purposely buried,” he wrote. “Gov. Shapiro's entire political focus is on Democrats winning up and down the ballot this November. Everything else is a distraction.”

When reached on Monday for further comment, Bonder directed City & State back to his Sunday tweet.

But on X, at least, it was obvious from the myriad skeptical replies that many people found that explanation disingenuous – as did several of Brooks’ rivals, who were only too eager to capitalize on a misstep by the governor’s candidate.

“Bob Brooks will say whatever it takes to avoid answering for his record or his actions, which includes repeatedly endorsing election deniers,” candidate Carol Obando-Derstine told City & State. The former nonprofit executive and senior adviser to former Sen. Bob Casey went on: “When he’s called out, he lies and deflects. It’s the same dishonest, zero-accountability politics people are fed up with in Congress. 

“We don’t need another John Fetterman,” she concluded, referencing the commonwealth’s senior senator, a Democrat whose mercurial stances are increasingly infuriating to many in his party.

Former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, another Democrat vying to challenge Mackenzie, used the episode to draw a contrast between the prevarication of his rival – and that rival’s backer – and Crosswell’s own integrity, which is central to his anti-corruption platform. 

He zeroed in on Shapiro's reported support for Garrity, a 2020 election denier – and, like Obando-Derstine, accused Brooks of also having supported election-deniers.

“Now Brooks is saying he 'misspoke.' So he was either lying then, or he is lying now,” Crosswell said in a statement his campaign issued Monday. “The Democratic nominee in PA-07 will be taking on Ryan Mackenzie, one of Trump's many election-denying lackeys in Congress. This party cannot run a candidate who endorses them."

Asked for further clarification, he told City & State: "The most important job of the next Congress is to protect the 2028 election … Electoral denialism is poison to democracy. We need people in Congress who will fight it, not enable it."

For her part, McClelland posted an acid response to the story. “What goes around comes around,” she wrote. “Now that someone is actually on record saying what everyone else knew, Shapiro's fealty-frenzied troglodytes are revising history and in some cases, bold-faced lying ... They're trying desperately to put the genie that Bob Brooks let loose, back in the bottle."

The only one of Brooks’ rivals to decline to comment was the one most likely to benefit from a slip in the firefighter’s popularity: Lamont McClure Jr., the former two-term Northampton County executive. McClure, the only candidate previously elected to public office, has strong local support – and, along with Brooks, has been considered a front-runner in the race.