Eric Stern drove out to Erie last January and got a slice of pizza with Christina Vogel at Donato’s, the downtown shop she has owned for nine years.
The small-business owner and political novice was interested in running for county executive against a vulnerable Republican incumbent. Stern, a longtime Democratic political operative, was part of a newly founded firm looking for candidates to help flip Republican-held seats.
“It all started with trying to find candidates who were, frankly, better messengers for the values we had and the things we cared about,” Stern said. “She was someone who understood the urgency of this moment as a small-business owner and mom but just as critically was not part of this broken system that had Democrats losing in the past.”
A year later, Vogel is the newly elected Democratic county executive after flipping one of the most famously swingy counties in the nation, widely seen as a presidential bellwether. And Stern’s firm, FIGHT, a national Democratic media consulting agency based in Pennsylvania, could play a critical role in elevating other Democratic challengers in 2026, when control of Congress is up for grabs.
FIGHT is working with Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in Northeast Pennsylvania and firefighter Bob Brooks in the Lehigh Valley. U.S. Rep Rob Bresnahan and U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, the freshman Republicans who represent those areas, each won by about a percentage point in 2024, making them two of the most vulnerable incumbents in next year’s elections.
This past year FIGHT’s six-person team helped Zohran Mamdani win the New York mayoral race, the buzziest contest of the cycle. The Philadelphia-based agency had a hand in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court slate’s retention, county executive wins in Lehigh and Erie, and two successful Democratic judicial campaigns in the state.
The firm was cofounded by Rebecca Katz, a Central High graduate who lives in New York; Philadelphia ad-maker Tommy McDonald; and Julian Mulvey, an architect of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.
“New York isn’t Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania isn’t New York,” Katz said of lessons learned from Mamdani’s win, also noting primaries and generals are extremely different. “But there’s a universal desire for authentic candidates laser-focused on the affordability crisis.”
The strategists started the firm in January 2025 after Democrats suffered across-the-board losses in 2024, a year she helped Sen. Ruben Gallego defy that trend and win an open seat in Arizona.
Stern, a Pittsburgh native and resident, and McDonald both quit their jobs to sign on with the agency.
Their most basic strategy is creating authentic campaigns that reflect the communities the candidates are running in, clear economic messaging, and trying different things across media platforms to win back working-class voters, Katz said.
“We try to think about what makes an ad pop, what makes people look up from their phone, or, if they’re on their phone, what makes them stay there,” Katz said. “It can’t look like everything else on TV.”
‘A new road map’
In the November election, standing out meant ads about the state Supreme Court race that featured Pennsylvanians talking directly to the camera about how they felt their rights had been protected by the three justices on the ballot, who were all first elected as Democrats. Sixteen Pennsylvania counties that Vice President Kamala Harris lost wound up voting to retain the judges in the most expensive judicial contest in state history.
The victory provided a blueprint for Gov. Josh Shapiro and other Democrats running in Pennsylvania in 2026, said McDonald, who made the ads for the retention race.
“These are the typical working-class voters that Democrats are bleeding,” McDonald said. “It’s Beaver County. It’s where the New York Times visits diners. It showed us there’s a new road map for how to get persuadable voters in Pennsylvania. We know where they are now.”
Stern, Katz, and McDonald all worked on Fetterman’s 2022 campaign, a race that included the unprecedented challenge of navigating a candidate’s stroke days before the primary and running a general election campaign as he recovered.
They wound up winning awards for the campaign, which featured bright yellow and black branding and creative trolling of Republican nominee Mehmet Oz’s New Jersey ties. McDonald had the idea to fly a banner plane along the Jersey shoreline: “HEY DR. OZ, WELCOME HOME TO NJ! ♥ JOHN,” it read.
They called that July, which also included Jersey Shore cast member Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi making a surprise cameo, “New Jersey Summer.”
“We all learned politics here,” McDonald said of his home state. “The idea is to try to do things differently, redefine Democratic campaigns.”
This year, political headwinds certainly helped Democrats, but hyperlocal messaging did, too, the strategists argue.
Stern worked with Vogel’s campaign in Erie to create ads that looked like a pizzeria’s commercials, to stand out from the cookie-cutter format.
”In Erie County, we know good things start with the right ingredients,” the ad says as a hand scatters toppings atop a pie.
Another ad showed Republicans and self-proclaimed three-time Donald Trump voters on-camera saying they were supporting Vogel over the incumbent, Republican Brenton Davis. A Democrat cannot win in the county without some independent and Republican support.
“They were all people I met on the campaign trail,” Vogel said of the ad. “We really focused on what matters most with affordability, how stretched thin people are across the U.S., and just focused relentlessly on the same message and reminding people why voting matters.”
And in Lehigh County, a slightly bluer but still purple region, Stern worked with State Rep. Josh Siegel’s campaign for county executive. That was more of an offensive against Republican Roger MacLean, a former Allentown police chief, whom ads described as a “grifter and a disgrace,” highlighting his multiple beach houses amid an affordability crisis.
“We came up with an ad strategy that basically determined the most important thing was to beat the crap out of this guy,” Stern said.
“I think Democrats have pulled their punches for way too long,” he added. “There’s a difference between fighting dirty and fighting back, and we have to be in a position where we’re willing to say, ‘We’re here to fight.’”
Siegel, 32, soon to become the youngest county executive in Pennsylvania history, credited the agency with urging him to be specific in his pitch to voters.
“For me, the problem with the way we communicate as Democrats is part of the professional consultant class has created this art form of saying a lot and saying nothing,” he said. “I think people have a particularly adept bulls— detector and they are tired of what is just the most inoffensive, poll-tested, style-over-substance speak we’ve perfected.”
As they look to next year, Stern thinks anti-corruption will be the key issue in the race against Bresnahan in the Northeast. Bresnahan has faced criticism for stock trading while in Congress. Cognetti, his opponent, has been the mayor since 2020, when she won on an anti-corruption platform.
While affordability runs across races, Stern said campaigns cannot make the mistake of being too general in their messaging. “There’s no one right message that cuts across all these districts,” he said.
“Too many folks are running the same ads or calling the same plays they would have a decade ago. We are in a different world. Things have totally changed in a million different ways.”
