Pa. election 2026: What to know about the 24th Senate District race in Berks and Montco
Republican incumbent Tracy Pennycuick faces two midterm challengers: Democrat Christopher Thomas and Green Party candidate Michael Schonewolf Jr.
From left to right: Republican state Sen. Tracy Pennycuick faces two challengers in Pa.'s 2026 election: Democrat Christopher Thomas and Green Party candidate Michael Schonewolf Jr. (WHYY file)
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- Pa.’s 24th Senate District: What’s at stake | The path to victory
- State Sen. Tracy Pennycuick: About | Political experience | Top priorities | Endorsements
- Christopher Thomas: About | Top priorities | Endorsements
- Michael Schonewolf Jr.: About | Top priorities | Endorsements
In the 2026 midterm elections, Pennsylvania voters will decide who will serve as governor and lieutenant governor for the next four years. State House and Senate seats are also on the ballot.
Here’s everything voters need to know about the race for the 24th Senate District seat in Berks and Montgomery counties, from who’s running and what’s at stake to where the candidates stand on key issues and beyond.
What’s at stake in the race for the 24th Senate District seat?
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What to know about incumbent Republican state Sen. Tracy Pennycuick
Although Pennycuick currently resides in Harleysville, she’s not a Montgomery County native. She told WHYY News that she was born and raised in a “small town outside of Boston.” Pennycuick graduated from Mansfield High School in Mansfield, Massachusetts, in 1983. She then attended the University of Connecticut for one year before enlisting in the U.S. Army as a combat medic.
She returned to finish her education at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration in 1987. Upon graduation, Pennycuick joined the aviation branch of the U.S. Army Reserve.
“My dad gave me a helicopter ride when I was 9 and I fell in love with flying helicopters and I saw that as the only avenue to be a helicopter pilot,” Pennycuick said. “I thought the service was a great place to kind of figure out what you want to do with your life, get a little discipline, get a little structure and I loved it.”
From Iraq and Afghanistan to South Korea and the United Kingdom, she spent 26 years traveling the globe on assignment alongside her husband Rick Pennycuick, who was also in the U.S. Army. In 2007, Pennycuick started an aviation consulting business. In 2008, Pennycuick graduated from the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College. She earned a master’s degree in public administration from Post University in 2015.
Tracy Pennycuick and her family moved to Harleysville in 2005 after her husband was reassigned to Philadelphia. The couple has four children. The couple’s last station was London. The family returned to Montgomery County when Tracy retired in 2010.
She spent three years as the director of the Montgomery County Office of Veteran Affairs. In 2020, Pennycuick won the 147th House District. In 2022, after serving one term in the House, she was elected to replace retiring state Sen. Bob Mensch in the 24th Senate District.
What to know about Democratic challenger Christopher Thomas
Thomas, of Perkiomenville, is originally from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Akron in Ohio, where he graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in geology. His family moved to southeastern Pennsylvania around the same time. He followed suit.
Thomas earned a master’s degree in environmental policy from Drexel University in 2021. While in school, he worked a construction job to pay his way.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Thomas taught math and science in a Philadelphia middle school.
“Honestly [I] was really stunned at the inequities in education and realized that we have to move the dial in Harrisburg to fight for fair funding in education,” Thomas said.
In 2022, he worked as a field director for Democrat Jill Dennin’s Senate campaign against Pennycuick.
“After that campaign, I was hired as the executive director for the Montgomery County Democratic Committee,” he said, and “organized grassroots power across the region.”
He stepped down in November to run for the Senate.
Thomas currently volunteers as a firefighter for the Upper Frederick Fire Company. He said he comes from a working-class family. His grandfather was a coal miner, as were his great-uncles. His father was a corrections officer. His mother was an educator.
“I haven’t made more than $65,000 a year in my life,” Thomas said. “So my politics are defined by my family and my deep Pennsylvania roots and wanting to fight for working-class, middle-class folks because I think for far too long the wealthiest have made more than their fair share and it’s time that they pay their fair share now.”
What to know about Green Party challenger Michael Schonewolf Jr.
Michael Schonewolf Jr., of Skippack, is a South Jersey native but moved around a lot as a child. He said he grew up in a poor family and that that experience informs his politics.
“When my father would get laid off … my mom would have to work two jobs,” Schonewolf said.
With child care tight, he recalled walking to his grandmother’s house in East Camden during a blizzard as a kid.
“That wasn’t fun,” he said. “It shaped who I am.”
He graduated from Williamstown High School in 2005 and from Camden County College in 2007. He then went through the Job Corps program and then to Lincoln Tech. He said he paid his way through college by working at a Burger King.
Schonewolf has held numerous jobs, including working at an eyeglass lens manufacturing plant, Virtua Voorhees Hospital, a rehab facility, FedEx, Lucerne and Lowe’s. He currently works in sanitation at Phoenixville Hospital.
He said the cost of living is so high and wages are so low that he can barely afford food. Schonewolf believes others can relate to his predicament.
“All my co-workers are going through this and it’s like that’s one of the reasons why I was inspired to run,” Schonewolf said.
Although he was previously an active member of the Green Party, Schonewolf currently identifies as a communist.
“Reform is not possible in this current system,” he said. “The only way we’re going to get out of it, we’re due for another revolution and it’s going to come. The next revolution is going to be a socialist one. And it’s only a matter of time before the dominoes fall and capitalism collapses within itself.”
Citing the cuts to Medicaid, he said that “people’s health care and basic means of subsistence is disappearing.” He said the other two major parties do not represent the interests of the working class.
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