Rob Bresnahan says he’s never run for office. He won an election in 2018.

Pennsylvania GOP congressional candidate Rob Bresnahan has positioned himself as a political outsider, asserting that he has never run for office aside from his current campaign. But Bresnahan was elected to the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee for Luzerne County in 2018, where he received thousands of votes from local citizens. 

“We took on a challenger race. As you know I’ve never ran for so much as dogcatcher before. I come from the private sector and you know I’m not coming from being a state rep. transitioning into a congressional role,” Bresnahan said in an interview with “The Bob Cordaro Show” on July 12.  

Bresnahan also fails to mention his time as a state committeeman when referencing his work experience on his campaign website. 

According to the Republican Party of Pennsylvania Rules and Bylaws, members are elected during the primary election in the same year as a gubernatorial election and hold four-year terms. The members are “responsible for the general supervision, regulation and direction of the Republican Party of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

Bresnahan worked on the state committee during a time when it was pushing staunch, right-wing social stances. During his tenure, the state party’s website prominently featured strong anti-abortion positions, saying they stood for “protecting the sanctity of marriage and the rights of the unborn.”

It also directed viewers to read more about their stance on the Republican Party’s 2016 platform, which advocated for constitutional amendments to protect the unborn and opposed public funding for organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

“Accordingly, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth,” the Republican Platform wrote. 

In 2019, the Republican Party of Luzerne County’s Facebook page thanked former President Donald Trump for cutting funding towards Planned Parenthood, calling it an “atrocious practice.”

Bresnahan garnered controversy earlier this spring after he repeatedly insulted certain areas and voters from the district he’s trying to represent.

Bresnahan is aiming to flip Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District seat, which has been held by Democrat Rep. Matt Cartwright since 2019, in the general election this November.