WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA—As the only self-avowed progressive Democrat from a district that has repeatedly supported Donald Trump (R) for president, Representative Matt Cartwright (D–PA) doesn’t dispute the conventional wisdom that his race to retain a congressional seat in next month’s election is too close to call. But if he wins a seventh term, it will also be a victory for his ability to link advocacy of research and environmental issues to the needs of conservative voters in this hardscrabble region of northeastern Pennsylvania.
“Matt is an authentic voice for his community,” says Jossie Steinberg of the political action fund of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is pumping money into his campaign.
A victory could amplify Cartwright’s influence over federal science. If Democrats regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Cartwright is likely to be reappointed chair of the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations subcommittee, which oversees several research agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. As CJS chair in 2022 he helped steer an additional $1 billion to NSF despite a tight budget cap on overall domestic spending, and he is now the panel’s top Democrat.
Cartwright’s Trump-backed Republican opponent, businessman Rob Bresnahan, claims the 63-year-old former trial lawyer has lost touch with his constituents and instead kowtows to the “radical agenda” of Vice President Kamala Harris (D). Cartwright disagrees and offers a two-word rebuttal: industrial hemp.
He touts the once-banned crop as an eco-friendly material for construction, transportation, and a host of other sectors, and says large-scale production and processing could revive the region’s sagging economy. He has used his House seniority to funnel millions of dollars to his district for hemp-related plant genetics research, education, and workforce training.
Such directed spending, often called earmarks, was banned in 2010 after years of abuses. But it was reinstated in 2021, and Cartwright boasts about the amount of funding he has secured not only for wastewater treatment plants and community policing, but also to turn science and technology into well-paying local jobs.
One award, for a mobile science lab for schools in the district, “has been a dream of mine for 15 years, and Congressman Cartwright made it happen,” says Sairam Rudrabhatla, a plant geneticist at Pennsylvania State University who works on industrial hemp. “I can’t say enough about [Cartwright’s] enthusiasm and commitment to the communities that he represents,” adds Thomas Trite, head of Vytal Plant Science Research, a local nonprofit that has received funding for a new research facility to work on industrial hemp.
Cartwright notes that hemp is also good at sequestering atmospheric carbon and absorbing heavy metal deposits at abandoned coal mines and other brownfield sites. His efforts to clean up those sites, which are plentiful in his district, have helped earn him an A+ voting record from the League of Conservation Voters.
But unlike many liberal Democrats, Cartwright doesn’t talk about climate change as an existential threat. Instead, he ties it to issues designed to resonate with the large number of older, poorer, and less educated voters in his district.
“People are displaced from their homes,” he says about a recent succession of 100-year floods that has ravaged the state. “They lose their belongings. And maybe worst of all, the flood plain map changes and they have to pay thousands of dollars each year in flood insurance.” Similarly, he says he supports renewable energy because “it’s a lot cheaper to get your energy from the Sun than to have people dig it up out of the ground or drill for it.”
In his appeal to Trump voters, Cartwright highlights instances in which he broke with his fellow Democrats and sided with Republicans—including on science-related issues. Last month, for example, he was one of only a handful of Democrats to support a bill passed by the House that would reinstate the Trump-era China Initiative. Designed to prevent foreign economic espionage, it instead targeted dozens of Chinese-born scientists working at U.S. universities because of their ties to China. Cartwright doesn’t bring up the subject on the campaign trail. But when asked about his vote he echoes China hawks.
“They’re stealing our intellectual property,” he says about the Chinese government. “They’re cheating, and we don’t want to just roll over and play dead. … There’s a nonzero chance we will be at war with China during my lifetime … and you don’t leave national security up to university officials.”
Getting tougher on illegal immigration is a major plank in Bresnahan’s campaign, and Cartwright treads carefully on the related topic of high-skills immigration. Foreign-born scientists comprise a large segment of the academic workforce, and university officials have pleaded with legislators not to restrict that flow. But Cartwright hedges when asked whether he supports providing a path to citizenship for foreign-born scientists earning a U.S. doctoral degree.
“I can see concerns on both sides of the aisle,” he answers. “So I’d need to look at the details” before making my decision.
On 5 November Cartwright will find out whether his efforts to bring home the bacon, support research, and protect the environment have persuaded enough Trump Republicans to keep him in Congress for another 2 years.
