Bob Brooks has worked a lot of jobs, sometimes several at once to make ends meet.
He was a paper boy at age 10, and then a dishwasher, prep cook, pizza deliverer, bartender and truck driver. Even after he became a firefighter in 2005, Brooks managed to start a snow-removal and lawn-care business and coach baseball.
Though his resumé is lengthy, it’s an unusual one for the job Brooks is vying for next: US congressman, representing his home-town district in eastern Pennsylvania.
Brooks handily won the Democratic party’s nomination for the House seat last month. A former union leader, he is one of a slate of labor candidates the party hopes will draw in working-class voters looking to see themselves in Congress.
“We need to change who’s representing us and who’s making the rules and the laws,” Brooks told the Guardian. “That’s what inspired me to do this. I think we need more everyday people down there, because everyday people are the ones that are struggling.”
In November, Brooks is running against Ryan Mackenzie, who narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent Susan Wild in 2024 after receiving nearly $1.1m in backing from a Koch-backed political action committee, Americans for Prosperity. Mackenzie was first elected to the Pennsylvania house of representatives in 2012 shortly after finishing business school at Harvard.
The race is currently a toss-up, with the Cook Partisan Index ranking it a +1 in favor of Mackenzie but noting that he is “one of the most vulnerable House Republicans in the country”.
Brooks joined the race following encouragement from Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, and US representative Chris Deluzio, a Democrat from western Pennsylvania, who knew him from his years leading the firefighters’ union.
Brooks recalled his first task as the union’s new local vice-president in 2005 was to put on a clam bake.
“I then learned quickly how … to represent the members,” Brooks told the Guardian, citing the work involved in negotiating union contracts and handling grievances. “Every day, I get to do what I love, and that’s fight for my members, fight for their healthcare, fight for their working conditions and fight for better pay.”
Brooks became president of his local union, then moved up to roles with the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association, where he was elected president in 2021.
“It appears, not just to me but to my unions and, quite honestly, to everyday people, that Washington doesn’t give a damn about us,” said Brooks. “Only 2% of Congress is from the working class, compared to 60% of our country.”
He said: “Quite honestly, I’m tired of getting kicked in the teeth.”
In his campaign, Brooks is emphasizing the stark contrast between him and his opponent. Mackenzie has an 8% legislative voting score from the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the US, and was endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce. Brooks has received endorsements from centrist and progressive elected officials, including the independent senator Bernie Sanders.
Brooks said he helped push for the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act in January 2025, which expanded social security benefits for firefighters, police officers, teachers and other public workers with pensions and a state law that secured mental health benefits and protections for first responders in Pennsylvania.
In his platform, Brooks is advocating for policies that address the affordability crisis, including rescinding Medicaid cuts, providing Medicare for all, banning private equity from buying homes, labor law reform, and raising the minimum wage.
But Brooks emphasized the first step toward addressing the crisis is stopping the Trump administration from making it worse, including through tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
“We need to stop the derangement, the things that are going on right now in Washington,” said Brooks. “Ryan Mackenzie, he just keeps voting for it.”
Brooks said his campaign refers to Mackenzie as “the arsonist”.
“An arsonist would start a fire, and then 15 minutes later the thing’s burning, [and] he calls the fire department,” Brooks said. “Mackenzie starts the fire by making a bad vote and then, two weeks later, he runs a bill to counter the bad vote.”
In a statement to the Guardian, Mackenzie refuted Brooks’s claims and said that Brooks’s “consultants dress him up as a work-class everyman”.
“Bob Brooks is a conman, fraudster, and dumpster-fire candidate,” Mackenzie said. “Brooks is running for office for the same reason he has done everything else – to serve himself and follow orders, just as he did as a union boss.”
