Democrats flood Bucks County with ads claiming Fitzpatrick blocked Epstein files as township crews strip campaign signs his lawyers call unlawful.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is fighting for a sixth term in Pennsylvania’s northern Philadelphia suburbs, and the race has turned raw. A video ad paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democrat Bob Harvie’s campaign uses wedding photos of the Republican congressman and his wife, Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich, while charging that he sided with Trump “to block the Epstein files.”
Breitbart News reported the spot and a second ad that brands Fitzpatrick the “deciding vote” in blocking those files. Fitzpatrick has called for transparency and disclosure of the Epstein material and signed Rep. Thomas Massie’s discharge petition last month. His attorneys say the ads twist his record and exploit private wedding images to paint him as a wealthy “fat cat.”
At the same time, Middletown Township, where Fitzpatrick lives, amended its political-sign rules and began pulling signs from rights-of-way. Campaign counsel says more than 100 political signs were hauled away, some allegedly from private property, while commercial signs stayed put. The Fitzpatrick camp sees a coordinated squeeze ahead of November.
The DCCC-Harvie video leans on images from Fitzpatrick’s recent wedding. One shows the couple toasting with champagne. Another places them in front of a rented car. The voice-over frames him as a multi-millionaire who “votes like them, too.”
Attorney Geoffrey Johnson, speaking for Fitzpatrick, rejected the portrayal outright. He noted that copyright belongs to the photographer who took the pictures and that the photographer is upset about the commercial damage.
"Congressman Fitzpatrick, being the subject of the photograph or one of the subjects of the photograph, is naturally upset that Bob Harvie sunk to the depth of using a wedding photograph in an attack ad, and trying to portray Congressman Fitzpatrick as some kind of fat cat."
Johnson added that everyone dresses up on a wedding day and may lease a car for the church and reception. The ad, he said, tries to leave the impression that Fitzpatrick “drives around in a tuxedo and drives a Rolls Royce every day.” He called that ridiculous and the kind of move a desperate challenger would make.
Harvie serves as vice president of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners. Federal Election Commission records cited in the reporting show he has raised just about $2 million. Fitzpatrick has raised more than $6.7 million. The cash gap is real, and the ad strategy leans hard on lifestyle imagery rather than legislative text. Campaign-finance fights of this sort keep surfacing in other races, including the scrutiny around Becerra’s campaign funds.
On September 14 the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors met and voted unanimously to amend ordinances that had allowed temporary campaign signs on township land near roadways. The five-member panel includes four Democrats. Meeting minutes show the township was already removing signs from rights-of-way when reported and telling residents to flag signs to the Township Manager’s Office.
Larry Otter, an attorney speaking for the Fitzpatrick campaign, said he has been dealing with the township solicitor. The township’s position is that the ordinance is now content-neutral. Otter’s on-the-ground check told a different story.
"Unfortunately, the only signs that they pulled up were 100-plus political signs. I was there, where they were storing the signs [at the] Department of Public Works. I did not see one commercial sign, so I think their argument is rather hollow, to be charitable."
Otter also said he understands signs were taken off private property, “beyond astonishing,” in his words. He expected to file a federal civil-rights action for homeowners and campaigns if no resolution came by the end of the week. Improper use of government machinery in local races has drawn federal attention elsewhere, as when a Mount Vernon mayor faced a Hatch Act warning over city-stamped campaign mailers.
Earlier this month, after the board vote, political signage still appeared on government property. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro joined Harvie at a pro-Planned Parenthood rally at the Middletown Township Municipal Center. Photos published by the Philadelphia Inquirer showed signs on the front of the building. The contrast is plain: one set of political messages cleared from roadsides, another displayed at a public facility.
At a town hall last Thursday an unnamed attendee asked Fitzpatrick a blunt question about the landscape.
"When am I going to see Bob Harvie signs? 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."
Ashley Ehasz was Fitzpatrick’s last opponent. The voter’s point landed on visibility and money. Harvie’s lower haul makes roadside signs harder to sustain; the township’s new enforcement makes them even scarcer. Fitzpatrick’s lawyers argue the ordinance change itself arrived because Harvie lacks the cash for a traditional sign war.
Fitzpatrick has built a reputation as a tough incumbent, Huffington Post recently called him one of the Republicans’ toughest, and he has led calls to ban stock trading in Congress while owning no individual stocks himself. The ads and sign pressure test whether that record still carries in a district Democrats want badly.
Back in March the Fitzpatrick campaign prepaid tens of thousands of dollars for ad space in the Bucks County Herald covering September through Election Day. Johnson said the campaign negotiated for weeks, secured approval from the publisher, the advertising department, and the paper’s attorney, then watched the paper run the ad once and reverse course.
"They ran it once and turned around and said, ‘Oh, we’ve made a decision that we’re not going to take any political ads.’"
Johnson called the Herald “quite frankly, a Democratic mouthpiece” and said the cancellation happened “because they were too effective.” The paper bills itself as an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit community news organization. The refund process created its own mess: the check went to Fitzpatrick’s congressional office rather than the campaign, so he cannot accept it. A larger attempted refund, Johnson said, would amount to an in-kind contribution from a nonprofit that the campaign cannot take. The campaign believes the cancellation itself constitutes political activity.
Local media gatekeeping and sudden rule changes have a way of shaping races when one side already trails in cash. Voters watching other contests have seen scandals and institutional pressure decide outcomes, including the primary loss that hit Cory Mills despite a Trump endorsement.
The core charge in the DCCC-Harvie ads is that Fitzpatrick worked to block the Epstein files. The congressman’s own House statement on H.Res. 668 and H.R. 4405, and his signature on Massie’s discharge petition last month, point the other way. He has publicly supported transparency and disclosure. The ad language does not grapple with that petition or the statement; it simply asserts the opposite.
That gap, between the paid claim and the documented action, sits at the center of the fight. Fitzpatrick’s team calls the ads dishonest. The ads keep running. In a midterm environment already thick with institutional distrust, the same pattern appears when large-scale program failures overshadow Democratic races, as with the $9 billion fraud scandal shadowing Minnesota’s gubernatorial contest.
Harvie’s campaign and the DCCC have not withdrawn the spots. The township has not restored the removed signs or walked back the ordinance. The Herald has not reinstated the prepaid political schedule. Otter’s threatened federal filing remains the campaign’s next lever if talks with the township solicitor fail.
Bucks County voters now see the full picture: wedding photos turned into wealth attacks, an Epstein claim that collides with a signed discharge petition, a Democrat-majority board rewriting sign rules, political signs stacked at the Department of Public Works, and a local paper that took the money, ran the ad once, then shut the door. Accountability travels in one direction only if voters force it.
When the rules, the signs, and the airwaves all shift against one candidate at once, taxpayers and lawful voters have every right to ask who the process is really built to protect.