FOLLOW THE MONEY | POCONO REVIEW INVESTIGATIVE
A Pocono Review analysis of federal filings reveals the Scranton mayor’s congressional bid is bankrolled overwhelmingly by donors in California, New York, and Washington, D.C. — not the NEPA communities she’s asking to send her to Congress.
Based on FEC filings through March 31, 2026 | Committee: Paige for PA (C00918151)
Scranton, Lackawanna County
Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti has raised more than $2.6 million in her bid to unseat Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District — a sprawling NEPA seat covering Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, and Pike counties, plus parts of Monroe County including Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg, and Mount Pocono.
But a Pocono Review analysis of Cognetti’s itemized campaign finance records, filed with the Federal Election Commission, reveals a striking disconnect between the candidate’s local brand and where her money actually comes from.
Nearly 70% of her individual contributions — roughly $598,000 of $857,000 — came from donors outside Pennsylvania. California alone supplied $147,000. New York added another $116,000. Meanwhile, donors from the actual district — the communities in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Stroudsburg, Honesdale, Milford, and the Poconos — contributed approximately $102,000, or about 12% of her total individual haul.
The Numbers: Where Cognetti’s Individual Donor Money Comes From
Source: FEC Schedule A filings, Paige for PA (C00918151), through 3/31/2026. Pocono Review analysis.
A District That Spans the Poconos to the Wyoming Valley
The 8th Congressional District is a geographically vast swath of northeastern Pennsylvania. It includes all of Lackawanna County (Scranton, Dunmore, Carbondale, Clarks Summit), all of Luzerne County communities including Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Pittston, Kingston, Nanticoke, and Plymouth, all of Wayne County (Honesdale, Hawley, Waymart, Lake Ariel, Hamlin), all of Pike County (Milford, Dingmans Ferry), and portions of Monroe County including Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg, Mount Pocono, Tobyhanna Township, and the Pocono Mountains resort communities.
It is a working-class district where voters in places like Old Forge, Moosic, Exeter, and Freeland have historically rewarded candidates who demonstrate roots in the region. Cognetti has campaigned on exactly that identity, telling supporters her bid is about “putting NEPA first” and running as a mayor who “cleaned up City Hall.”
Yet the FEC data tells a different story about who is funding that effort.
Santa Barbara, Greenwich, and Palo Alto: The Maxed-Out Donor Map
Cognetti’s filings show 40 individual donors who gave the maximum contribution of $7,000 (the $3,500 primary and general election limits combined). Of those, 21 — more than half — listed their occupation as “not employed” or “retired,” and the vast majority live in affluent communities far from the Poconos or the Wyoming Valley.
Eight maxed-out “not employed” donors are from California, concentrated in Santa Barbara and the Bay Area. A cluster of four Santa Barbara donors — Wayne Rosing, Dorothy Largay, Edward McKinley, and Kathleen Lavidge — all gave $7,000 on just two dates in mid-December, a pattern consistent with coordinated bundling through a shared social or donor network. Rosing is a former vice president of engineering at Google.
Two maxed-out donors came from Greenwich, Connecticut (Mary Penniman and Garrett Moran). Two came from Missoula, Montana (Marc and Jane Katz). Two from Northampton, Massachusetts (Richard and Joanne Stultz). Only two of the 21 “not employed” max donors live in Pennsylvania — one in Philadelphia and one in Waverly.
Wall Street, Tech Money, and a Soros Connection
The filings also reveal significant contributions from the financial industry. Yaron Minsky, a programmer at Jane Street — one of the world’s most profitable quantitative trading firms, based in New York — maxed out at $7,000, as did his wife Lisa Minsky. Martin Packouz, a Goldman Sachs financial advisor in New Jersey, maxed out. So did Theodore Coons, an investor at OceanSound Partners, a New York private equity firm, and Marcus Duquette, a trader at Simplex Investments in Chicago.
Adam Blitzer, a software executive at Datadog, a cloud monitoring company valued at over $30 billion, gave $7,000 from New York. Jonathan Soros, CEO of JS Capital Management and son of billionaire investor George Soros, and his wife Jennifer Allan Soros each gave $3,500 on December 10.
Shanin Specter, a prominent Philadelphia trial attorney at Kline & Specter, also maxed out. Todd Wintner, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, gave $3,500.
None of these donors live in the 8th Congressional District.
The PAC Picture: J Street, EMILY’s List, and the AIPAC Question
Cognetti’s campaign received approximately $241,399 in political action committee contributions through the end of March 2026. A Pocono Review analysis of her itemized PAC receipts found no direct contributions from AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group that endorsed her opponent Bresnahan.
Her pro-Israel funding instead flows through J Street PAC (C00441949), the liberal pro-Israel organization that advocates for a two-state solution and conditional military aid. J Street contributed $13,015 across 18 transactions, and Cognetti’s campaign pays merchant fees to J Street for processing donations through their fundraising platform.
Source: FEC Schedule A filings. Table excludes ActBlue conduit transactions. Dem Rising 2026 total includes unitemized transfers.
Cognetti also received contributions from the campaign committees of some of the Democratic Party’s most prominent national figures, including Nancy Pelosi ($2,000), Pete Aguilar ($2,000), Ted Lieu ($1,000), and Chrissy Houlahan ($2,500). She has been endorsed by Governor Josh Shapiro, placed in the DCCC’s “Red to Blue” program, and endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), though DMFI PAC had not yet made a direct contribution as of the filing period.
The Cognetti Network: Family and Waverly
At least 14 members of the Cognetti family contributed a combined total of approximately $30,000. Her parents, John and Mary Cognetti of Dalton, Lackawanna County, each maxed out. Brother David Cognetti, a physician at Thomas Jefferson University in the Philadelphia suburbs, gave $5,000. Joseph Cognetti, an investment analyst at Lynrock Lake — a New York hedge fund — and Christine Cognetti, who works at tech company Okta, each gave $3,400 from Vero Beach, Florida. Mark Cognetti, an attorney at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, a white-shoe New York law firm, gave $3,500.
Family contributions are legal and commonplace, but the employers listed by Cognetti’s relatives — a major New York law firm, a hedge fund, a publicly traded tech company — illustrate a family network that is well-connected in national finance and legal circles.
A separate cluster of donors from Waverly, Lackawanna County, contributed roughly $27,000, led by Mortimer Fuller ($7,000), a self-described philanthropist, and his wife Sue Fuller ($7,000). The Waverly donors represent the strongest geographic concentration of local money in Cognetti’s filings.
What It Means for Voters in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, Pike, and Monroe Counties
None of what the Pocono Review found in Cognetti’s filings is illegal. Federal candidates routinely raise money from across the country, and the Democratic Party’s national fundraising infrastructure — ActBlue, EMILY’s List, the DCCC’s Red to Blue program — is specifically designed to direct out-of-state dollars into competitive races.
But the scale of the imbalance raises questions that voters in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Stroudsburg, Honesdale, Milford, Mount Pocono, and communities across the 8th District may want to consider. When 70 cents of every individual dollar comes from outside the state — and the biggest checks come from Santa Barbara, Greenwich, and Manhattan rather than Dunmore, Pittston, or Tobyhanna — who is a candidate ultimately accountable to?
Cognetti’s campaign has framed the race as a fight against Washington corruption, pointing to Bresnahan’s stock trading controversies. Her slogan promises to “put NEPA first.”
The FEC filings show that NEPA’s checkbooks aren’t the ones putting her campaign first.
Methodology
This analysis is based on Schedule A (itemized receipts) and financial summary data filed by the Paige for PA committee (C00918151) with the Federal Election Commission for the 2025–2026 cycle, covering the period from September 2, 2025, through March 31, 2026. The data was downloaded from FEC.gov on April 20, 2026.
NEPA-area calculations include individual donors from municipalities within the 8th Congressional District across Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties. Out-of-state percentages are calculated against total itemized individual contributions. PAC totals exclude ActBlue conduit transactions, which pass through individual donations earmarked for the campaign.
The Pocono Review contacted the Cognetti campaign for comment prior to publication. This article will be updated with any response received.
The Pocono Review is a local news publication covering Monroe, Wayne, Pike, Carbon, Lackawanna, and Luzerne counties. Campaign finance data cited in this article is publicly available through the Federal Election Commission at fec.gov.