Military veteran Ashley Ehasz officially filed paperwork and made her announcement that she is running for Congress in the First Congressional District Tuesday morning.
The Bensalem Township resident, who originally hails from Northampton County, posted her launch video that touts her tough upbringing and U.S. Army service on social media at 7 a.m.
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Ehasz is the first, but likely not the last, Democrat to announce their run for the party’s 2022 primary. The winner of the primary will face their Republican opponent, which will almost certain to be incumbent three-term Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, of Middletown Township, in the November 2022 general election.
The announcement video features Ehasz walking through Bristol Borough explaining her story and telling viewers that she will be fighting for them if elected.
“Politicians in Washington and Harrisburg talk out of both sides of their mouth and don’t do a thing to help the people,” she said.
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On her campaign website, Ehasz said “Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick has simply failed to get the job done. I’m not a politician. I’m not going to Washington to cozy up to lobbyists — I am going to roll up my sleeves and solve problems.”
Ehasz, in her announcement video, told viewers she is “angry at a system” that makes it hard for families to succeed. She recalled her own family’s struggles growing up and having to use water in her cereal at times.
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The candidate said that if someone told the girl with a “struggling mother” that she would one day be flying the U.S. Army’s AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters, “I would have told you to “f–k off.”
Ehasz graduated from U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. After serving as an attack helicopter pilot and being deployed to Kuwait and Iraq, Ehasz graduated from the University of Oxford, penning a thesis that was featured in the Cornell International Affairs Review, according to her biography posted online.
Democratic insiders told LevittownNow.com in recent weeks that Ehasz has been a regular at fundraising events this year and has volunteered with candidates running in 2021 in the lower and central parts of the county.
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Sources have said that Ehasz is not expected to be the only Democrat running for the 2022 primary. Several other potential candidates have looked at running, including other military veterans.
With Fitzpatrick the most likely Republican challenger for the November 2022 election, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent months trying to soften Fitzpatrick by pushing messages connecting him to former President Donald Trump and running a billboard along I-95 in Bristol Township that read: “Does Brian Fitzpatrick Support Trump?”
Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
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Fitzpatrick, a former FBI special agent with a law degree, has defeated the Democrats in his three previous congressional runs.
According to federal election paperwork, Fitzpatrick began the third quarter of 2021 with more than $1 million in new contributions, a record for his campaign, and $1.3 million in the bank.
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After his 2021 election win, Fitzpatrick was asked to consider a run for U.S. Senate in 2022, but he turned down that opportunity, LevittownNow.com exclusively reported Monday.
Republican sources have said that Fitzpatrick will likely face one or more GOP opponents in the 2021 primary election. His past opponents, who he has easily defeated, have largely hit the congressman for not showing enough support for former President Donald Trump and his policy statements. Despite these criticisms, Fitzpatrick did earn Trump’s endorsement in 2020.
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Ehasz is the third candidate to file paperwork in the 2022 election.
Souderton, Montgomery County resident Henry Conoly is running with the Green Party in the First Congressional District, which includes all of Bucks County and the part of Montgomery County near Lansdale.
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