Paige Cognetti

Paige Gebhardt Cognetti (born 1979/1980)^[1] is an American politician serving as the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania. She is the first woman to be mayor of the city and won her seat in a special election.^[2][3] A member of the Democratic Party, she ran her first Scranton mayoral campaign as an Independent.

Paige Cognetti
Cognetti in 2022
36th Mayor of Scranton
Incumbent
Assumed office January 6, 2020
Preceded by	Wayne Evans (acting)
Personal details
Born	1979 or 1980 (age 44–45) Eugene, Oregon, U.S.
Political party	Democratic (before 2019, 2021–present) Independent (2019–2021)
Spouse	Ryan Cognetti
Children	2
Education	University of Oregon (BA) Harvard University (MBA)

Early life and education

Cognetti was born in Eugene, Oregon. She graduated summa cum laude from the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Romance Languages, and earned a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School. She started her career as an English teacher in Japan; and was a fundraiser for the Clinton and Obama 2008 campaigns and later served as an advisor at the U.S. Treasury Department.^[4][5] She is married to Ryan Cognetti with two children.^[6][7]

Political career

Cognetti was appointed to the Scranton School Board in 2017,^[8] but later resigned in December 2018 to become a special assistant to Pennsylvania's then state auditor, Eugene DePasquale.^[9] She has run on reform and pragmatism platforms; on the school board, she criticized Scranton's no-bid school bus contracts and unapproved payments to contractors.^[10] For her mayoral bid, she focused on investments and budgets for local businesses, education, and infrastructure.^[11] In 2024, President Joe Biden appointed Cognetti to the United States Trade Representative's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.^[12]

Mayor of Scranton

In 2019, Cognetti ran in the Scranton mayoral special to finish the term of former Scranton mayor Bill Courtright, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges in July of that year.^[13] Cognetti, previously a life long Democrat, ran as an independent after she deemed the closed caucus system of nomination used by the local Democratic Party as not in favor of the people. Cognetti won the special election with 36% of the vote.^[3]

Cognetti ran for election to a full term in 2021 as a Democrat and won in a landslide.^[6]

Electoral history

Scranton Mayoral Special Election, 2019^[14]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Independent	Paige Cognetti	5,849	36.52%
	Independent	Kyle Donahue	3,588	22.4%
	Democratic	Chris Cullen	2,567	16.03%
	Republican	Charlie Spano	2,468	15.41%
	Independent	Giovanni Piccolino	699	4.36%
	Independent	Gary St. Fleur	384	2.4%
	Independent	John Goshleski	76	0.47%
	Write-in		387	2.42%
Total votes			16,018	100%

Scranton Mayoral Democratic primary election, 2021^[15]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Paige Cognetti (incumbent)	7,870	71.36%
	Democratic	John Murray	3,119	28.28%
	Write-in		39	0.35%
Total votes			11,028	100%

Scranton Mayoral Election, 2021^[16]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Paige Cognetti (incumbent)	9,851	72.51%
	Republican	Darwin Lee Shaw II	3,175	23.37%
	Write-in		79	0.58%
Total votes			13,585	100%