HORSHAM, Pa. – Democrats are trying to defeat the “Final Boss” of incumbent House Republicans. To do so, they’re turning to Bob.

“We’re going to win,” Bob Harvie, a former high school history teacher and current member of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners, told HuffPost on Thursday before a town hall. “What we’re hearing from people is they’re just tired of what’s happening in Washington. And Brian Fitzpatrick’s been there 10 years.”

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) has represented these northern Philadelphia suburbs since 2017, easily defeating previous challengers despite the district favoring Democratic candidates in the past three presidential elections. Not even the blue wave of 2018, which brought Democrats 40 House seats, could sweep Fitzpatrick away. He scoffed last month when the Harvie campaign touted a poll showing that he was catching up.

“He’s not. We feel very good about it,” Fitzpatrick said in an interview at the Capitol. His campaign then released a survey showing him with a 9-point lead.

Still, Democrats believe they have “Harviementum.” They’re giddy about their chances of flipping Fitzpatrick’s seat as pollsters give them increasingly strong odds of taking the House of Representatives and maybe the Senate in November’s midterm elections. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his war in Iran have spiked gas prices and infuriated voters, and the president has urged them to pretend he’s on the ballot. In recent weeks, oddsmakers have even shifted a U.S. Senate race in Kansas in Democrats’ favor. The national party started spending millions this week against Fitzpatrick for the first time since 2020.

As one Democratic operative put it to HuffPost: “Why not Bob Harvie? If we can flip Kansas, why not Bucks County?”

Fitzpatrick is a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor who has frequently bucked his party in Congress. He boasts endorsements from labor unions, gun control organizations and environmental groups — good credentials for a Republican running in a blue district.

“Fitzpatrick definitely has the incumbency advantage. He has a lot of credibility,” Daniel Mallinson, an associate professor of public policy at Penn State Harrisburg, told HuffPost.

One reason Democrats are bullish on Harvie is that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) has led his Republican opponent, Stacy Garrity, by double-digit margins in every poll since last year, and Shapiro has been campaigning with Harvie. Mallinson noted, however, that when Shapiro won in 2022 by nearly 15 percentage points, Fitzpatrick still won his race by nearly 10 percentage points.

And Fitzpatrick is taking no chances. In addition to bragging about his bipartisan record, he’s focused heavily on tearing down Harvie, accusing him of being the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation, despite limited evidence for the accusation. The message has been in TV ads, yard signs and billboards throughout the district. In September, 75% of voters said they had seen negative messaging about Harvie.

“Few members of Congress have a grip on their competitive districts as well as Fitzpatrick,” the Republican pollster who did the survey for Fitzpatrick said in a memo. “His strategy of defining his opponent before they get their campaign off the ground looks to have been successful.”

Harvie spoke to a grand jury as part of a federal criminal investigation in 2021, but he told HuffPost he was just a witness, not a subject or a target of the investigation, which never resulted in charges against anyone. Fitzpatrick insists the case is ongoing unless Harvie produces government documentation of his innocence, which Fitzpatrick says he knows exists because he himself was an FBI agent and prosecutor.

“For 15 years I designated people’s grand jury status,” Fitzpatrick told HuffPost. “It’s not complicated.”

At a town hall meeting on Thursday, Harvie supporters seemed concerned he hadn’t done enough to counter Fitzpatrick’s attacks. One attendee said he saw Fitzpatrick signs going up “everywhere” that accused Harvie of corruption and made him look “demonic.” He worried Harvie would lose like Fitzpatrick’s last Democratic challenger, Ashley Ehasz.

“When am I going to see Bob Harvie signs?” the man said. “I went to so many things with Ashley Ehasz when she was running, and she was massacred. I don’t want to see that happen to you because you’re the man.”

Harvie assured the crowd Fitzpatrick’s attacks weren’t working and that he had more signs coming in. He also pointed to the millions in advertising support he’s begun to receive from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and an aligned super PAC.

“The national party is putting in more money to this race than they have in at least a decade,” Harvie said. “They believe that there’s something that’s going to happen, because there’s a lot of races across the country that they can put money in. They chose this one, and this one’s expensive because it’s a Philadelphia media market.”

On Friday, in another sign of Democrats’ optimism about the race, Harvie’s campaign announced he’d be joined by Shapiro and also House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) at a campaign event on Saturday.

Regarding Fitzpatrick’s corruption charge, Harvie noted he has endorsements from Shapiro, who previously served as Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement official, as well as the current district attorney of Bucks County and the sheriffs of both Bucks and Montgomery counties.

“I am proud to have those endorsements, and I think they speak for themselves,” Harvie said.

Mallinson, the Penn State Harrisburg professor, said a fuzzy corruption allegation – Harvie’s alleged wrongdoing has never been explained – might not be effective.

“It’s hard for voters to really understand what the specific claim is there, and I do think voters are used to mudslinging among candidates,” Mallinson said.

Jen Magyar, 45, is a bartender and restaurant manager who lives in Furlong. After seeing Fitzpatrick’s TV ads calling Harvie corrupt, Magyar said she tried to research the accusation online but couldn’t find a definitive explanation.

“I have no idea what it even is. It’s just saying that he’s corrupt,” Magyar told HuffPost.

She said she’s not impressed by Fitzpatrick breaking with his party on some votes. She noted that he voted against final passage of the Big Beautiful Bill last July, but cast a crucial vote to advance the legislation in May.

“He votes along party lines as a Republican,” Magyar said, “and then when the vote doesn’t really matter, he’ll vote so he can say that he’s an independent.”

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