At Heartland Signal, we want to be sure voters are informed heading into the midterm elections. Accordingly, we’re creating a series where we offer voters in those districts a look at the two candidates and their stances on issues that matter most to voters right now.

Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District 

Incumbent: Scott Perry (Republican)

District geography: Harrisburg and York Area

Last election (2024):

Candidate	Party	Votes	Percent
Scott Perry (incumbent)	Republican	205,567	50.5
Janelle Stelson	Democrat	200,434	49.3

At a glance:

Scott Perry has governed as a hard right conservative for his long political career in the Harrisburg area, including playing a pivotal role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. But now he faces a strong challenge from Janelle Stelson, who spent the last three decades getting to know the area as an anchor for a local television station.

Candidate information

Q: Who is running to represent Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District?

A: Republican incumbent Scott Perry is running against Democratic challenger Janelle Stelson.

Q: What’s Scott Perry’s background?

A: Scott Perry was born in California and moved to Pennsylvania as a child. After graduating from college, he started a contracting business where he faced felony charges for conspiring to falsify reports. Soon thereafter, he won his first elected position in the Pennsylvania state legislature, and he has been a politician for the last 20 years.

Q: What’s Janelle Stelson’s background?

A: Janelle Stelson was born in Alaska and first moved to Pennsylvania in 1987 to work for WHTM-TV in Harrisburg. She later worked as an evening news anchor for WHP-TV in Harrisburg and WGAL-TV in Lancaster, where for 30 years she says she learned about the district through covering the people living in it.

Issues: Health care

Q: Does Scott Perry want to make health care better?

A: Scott Perry says on his website that he’s ideologically opposed to government involvement in health care. And his record matches up to his public stances, as he voted for the largest ever cuts to Medicaid, though he insisted that nobody legitimately in the program would lose coverage. He also voted to slash Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that lowered health care costs for people in his district and to repeal the ACA altogether. He has voted against capping drug prices, expanding health care to include veterans exposed to toxins during combat and banning surprise medical bills. 

Q: Does Janelle Stelson want to make health care better?

A: Stelson’s top health care priority is to reverse the cuts that Scott Perry voted for in order to lower health care costs in the district. She also wants to do more to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Unlike some more left-leaning members of the Democratic House Caucus, she does not support Medicare for All but does support a public option.

Issues: Costs and tariffs

Q: Is Scott Perry trying to make things cheaper?

A: Instead of working to repeal tariffs, Scott Perry has encouraged his constituents to be patient as they cause prices to go up. He has supported Trump’s tariff policies since they were announced, and he voted to support higher tariffs in March 2025, September 2025 and February 2026. He’s also for the war on Iran, which he called “awesome” even though it’s led to a significant increase in inflation and the cost of living. Perry also voted against a bill that would address rising housing costs.

Q: Is Janelle Stelson trying to make things cheaper?

A: Janelle Stelson has said that she hopes to get out of Iran “as soon as possible” in order to ease the affordability crisis in Pennsylvania. She’s also opposed to tariffs and wants to repeal them. She also supports a bill that would encourage the building of more housing as a way of making rents and mortgage payments go down.

Issues: Data centers and energy bills 

Q: Will Scott Perry stop data centers?

A: Scott Perry supports the building of data centers, telling Politico that we “can’t afford to slow the build out.” He also voted for a bill that would have banned state and local governments from restricting where data centers are built. However, he has since clarified that he’s against data centers that are used by pornographic websites.

Q: Will Janelle Stelson stop data centers?

A: Janelle Stelson wants state and local governments to be able to decide whether a data center should be built in their jurisdiction. She’s also run ads stating that she thinks data centers should have to pay their own way instead of getting tax breaks and raising nearby residents’ electricity bills.

Issues: Ethics and accountability

Q: Will Scott Perry fight corruption?

A: Scott Perry faced questions about his vote against a bipartisan bill that would have banned private equity firms from investing in single-family housing after receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the head of Blackstone Group and his wife. He also received $1,000 from a Nigerian-born billionaire the same day his DOJ settlement on a corruption investigation became public. Perry has voted against requiring dark money groups to disclose their donors in the past and is ideologically opposed to restricting donations.

Q: Will Janelle Stelson fight corruption?

A: Janelle Stelson supports cracking down on wealthy donors’ ability to influence campaigns, supporting measures like overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, requiring dark money groups to disclose their donors and banning members of Congress from becoming lobbyists.

Issues: Patriotism

Q: Does Scott Perry believe that the results of an election should be respected?

A: A former aide to Donald Trump told a congressional committee that Scott Perry was “central” to planning the attempted coup on Jan. 6 and that he asked for a pardon after the insurrection failed. Perry refused to testify about the matter under oath. The Department of Justice seized his cell phone records as part of the election interference investigation. However, after Trump won in 2024, he instructed the agents who were investigating Perry to be fired. 

Q: Does Janelle Stelson believe that the results of an election should be respected?

A: Janelle Stelson says that she supports a peaceful transfer of power after an election.

On the trail: Campaign surrogates

Q: What is Scott Perry’s relationship with Scott Presler?

A: Scott Perry has appeared at campaign events with Scott Presler, a QAnon promoter who was at the Jan. 6 insurrection and allegedly filmed pornography in a Republican field office. 

Q: What is Janelle Stelson’s relationship with Scott Presler?

A: Scott Presler, a Qanon promoter who was at the Jan. 6 insurrection and allegedly filmed pornography in a Republican field office, promoted a false smear that Stelson’s campaign hired an illegal immigrant.