Democrat Justin Wagner is running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 16th District, which has been represented by Republican Rep. Mike Kelly since 2011. 

Wagner, an Army veteran who works as an engineer, says he has a blue-collar solution to bring jobs back to the heavily red district, a plan he calls “Ships and Chips.” It calls for a naval and commercial shipbuilding hub centered on the Port of Erie, and a semiconductor and microchip manufacturing corridor in the western Pennsylvania district.

Wagner has a detailed plan for how he would work with local, state and federal partners to attract investment from private industry, build the supply chain ecosystem and create a workforce and education pipeline.

“These are not campaign promises invented in a Washington conference room,” Wagner writes in his paper outlining the plan. “They are engineering-grounded plans built on real supply chains, real workforce assets, and real federal opportunity.” 

Wagner, a father of four daughters, said in an interview with The Caucus that he sees the decisions being made in Washington and how it will affect them. “My oldest is 20 and she’s given up on affording a home,” Wagner said. “She’s given up on being able to live a life that she can thrive in. I couldn’t stand by and tell them I did nothing, I had to make sure they have a country they can believe in and achieve their dreams.” 

The 16th Congressional District stretches along Pennsylvania's border with Ohio, from Lake Erie to Butler County just north of Pittsburgh. The GOP presidential candidate has won PA-16 in both cycles since it was redistricted from the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania to the northwestern region in 2018. 

On the campaign trail, Wagner says the top concerns he hears from residents in the district have to do with affordability, like the rising costs of food, rents, energy and gas prices. 

“We’ve got a lot of agriculture here in this district, and we’ve got a lot of farmers who are struggling because their costs have been driven up so high, for diesel and for fertilizer,” he said. “A lot of that’s because of the war in Iran, with the stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and not bringing an end to this war through Congress, like the way it should be.” 

He worries that with the forecasts of a strengthened El Nino weather pattern, the coming winter will be one of the most severe in a long time. “Many people won’t be able to afford to heat their homes,” Wagner said. “It’s going to be another crisis that could have been avoided.”

He also hears from people worried about what to do if a data center project is proposed in their community, with most people he speaks to saying they’re staunchly opposed. 

Wagner proposes a set of conditions for any data center to be approved that would require operators to disclose what their water and electricity consumption would be, and projections of emissions and infrastructure needs. Data center proposals would also be required to evaluate the impact a center would have on nearby residents, and give affected communities “meaningful participation” in the process before projects can move forward.

If voters send him to Washington, Wagner said the first piece of legislation he’d want to tackle would be raising the cap on Social Security to make sure it’s solvent. 

“People are concerned so much about their Social Security being cut,” he said. “I think that's probably an easy lift. There's legislation there to do it already. It just needs people with the right will to fight for it and get it passed. So bringing that relief to people on Social Security, making sure that it's there and they don't have to worry about it would be one of the first things that I did.”

Wagner acknowledges that while he’s out on the trail he’s speaking with a lot of people who voted for Kelly and for President Donald Trump. He usually introduces himself as a veteran, which often provides the opening for a conversation. 

“But we’ve got far more in common than that,” he added. “We’re all neighbors, we’re all going to the same grocery store, we’re all going to the same gas pump. They’re not my enemies, they’re my neighbors. And no matter what happens, we're gonna have to learn how to live through whatever comes next together.”

(Photo: Justin Wagne, via Justin Wagner For Congress Facebook)