Republicans rally to flip Pennsylvania seat — to the Democrat

In a stunning rebuke of right-wing Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), former Republican state Sen. Pat Vance came out in support of Democratic nominee George Scott.

“Party allegiance cannot take precedence over people’s healthcare needs,” Vance said in a statement. “For that reason, I will be voting for George Scott to represent the new 10th Congressional District.”

While the district leans conservative, Scott, a veteran and Lutheran pastor, is running a close race with Perry, a hyperpartisan conservative whose far-right and anti-immigrant views are well outside the mainstream.

Vance’s statement referenced a particularly callous remark Perry made about maternity care for pregnant women. In 2017, Perry told a constituent that he didn’t want to pay for maternity care for other women because “I have two children, and we’re not having any more.”

That remark clearly incensed Vance. “It is a benefit to our entire community that pregnant women and the child they are carrying have insurance that provides proper care,” she said. “It was not too many years ago that many insurance companies refused to cover maternal care because pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition.”

Vance made her announcement at an event with more than a dozen Republican constituents who are also supporting Scott.

Vance’s announcement is especially noteworthy because she has served in the state legislature with Perry. She has supported Perry’s campaigns in the past — but not this year.

Vance is now the second former Republican lawmaker who worked with Perry but is now endorsing Scott.

The first, former state Rep. Steve Nickol, wrote that Perry is “cold-hearted” and “spends too much time promoting baseless conspiracy theories and Freedom Caucus hyper-partisanship and too little time addressing the real challenges that people are facing every day.”

Perry’s views on immigration are particularly troubling.

Perry defended Trump’s cruel family separation policy, which included ripping babies from the arms of mothers, holding immigrant children in cages, and separating families without bothering to keep proper records in order to reunite them later.

In addition to making up lies about human trafficking to defend the policy, Perry also lamented that children could only be detained for 20 days instead of even longer.

Perry’s extremism is so repugnant, it’s driving decent Pennsylvania Republicans  straight into the camp of the much more moderate, solutions-oriented George Scott.