Poll: Republican Jim Bognet in Dead Heat with Democrat in PA’s 8th Congressional District

Jim Bognet, Matt Cartwright
Bognet For Congress, Democratic Weekly Address
Nick Gilbertson

Republican Jim Bognet is tied with Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) in the race for Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District, which includes President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton.

Bognet’s campaign released an internal poll conducted by Cygnal, showing he is in a dead heat with Cartwright. Of the likely voter respondents, 47.7 percent say they back Bognet, while 47.5 percent support Cartwright. The .2 percent margin between the candidates is virtually unchanged from June, when Bognet garnered 45.7 percent of the response versus Cartwright’s 45.4 percent.

What is more, Bognet has made substantial strides in favorability, while Cartwright’s has taken a hit. Bognet, a small business owner and conservative policy adviser, registered a favorability rating of 37 percent in the latest poll versus a 34.6 percent unfavorability rating. In June, his favorability and unfavorability ratings stood at 29.3 percent and 31.8 percent, respectively.

Conversely, in June, Cartwright enjoyed a favorability rating of 44.5 percent, which was accompanied by an unfavorability of 32.4 percent. The latest numbers show his favorability rating at 42.9 percent and his unfavorability rating at 39.7 percent. In other words, his net rating has fallen nearly nine points, while Bogent’s has climbed almost five.

“Matt Cartwright cannot buy his way out of his own record, and his failure to gain any momentum during the only stretch of the general election where Cartwright and his D.C. allies will be substantially outspending Jim Bognet and Republicans is emblematic of this,” wrote Joe Desilets, a senior strategist for the Cartwright campaign, in a memo.

Cartwright, who has voted for President Joe Biden’s agenda 100 percent of the time, has found himself in a potential conflict of interest with General Electric (GE), according to an ethics watchdog, as Breitbart News documented earlier this month.

He visited the (GE) Research facility in upstate New York last month while holding up to $15,000 in GE stock. The visit came days after Biden signed the $280 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act, meant to boost domestic semiconductor production. GE, which Reuters reports to be a semiconductor consumer, is part of the Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC). The coalition penned a letter to Congressional leadership on July 28, 2021, calling on “Congress to support funding for incentives for semiconductor manufacturing and increased semiconductor research.”

“Anytime a Member takes official action that could impact their personal finances, it raises conflict of interest concerns,” Kendra Arnold, the executive director of the federal government ethics watchdog, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), told Breitbart News.

“Given his specific position in Congress and stock holdings, there are legitimate concerns,” Arnold added. FACT previously dubbed Cartwright one of the “worst ethics violators of 2019.”

The poll sampled 440 likely voters from September 6-8. A margin of error was not listed.

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