In the News

Matt Cartwright and Brian Fitzpatrick are political anomalies.

The two Eastern Pennsylvania congressmen come from different political parties: Cartwright is a Democrat from the Scranton area, while Fitzpatrick is a Republican from Southeastern Bucks County. But the political pressures they face are not that dissimilar. In 2020, despite Cartwright winning by more than 3 percentage points, former President Donald Trump carried his district. That same year, President Joe Biden won Fitzpatrick's district but the Republican congressman won by a staggering 13 percentage points.

In an increasingly polarized country, where gerrymandering has created scores of districts where only one party can easily win, Cartwright and Fitzpatrick are unique: Only 16 members of the US House represent districts that voted for the opposing party's presidential nominee in 2020, a markedly small number for a 435-person legislative body.

While both congressmen have long frustrated operatives from their opposing parties -- Cartwright has served in the House since 2013 and Fitzpatrick since 2017 -- they survive by getting support from voters who traditionally vote with their opponents. Like clockwork, Cartwright and Fitzpatrick win, defying the political tilt of their districts and repeated attacks linking them to the extremes of their parties. Fitzpatrick, a more moderate Republican who routinely touts his bipartisan streak and local credibility, was regularly tied to Trump and some of the most conservative members of his party in 2020, while Cartwright was linked to more liberal positions like total amnesty for undocumented immigrants and defunding the police, neither of which he supports.