Philly’s U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle said he won’t run for Sen. John Fetterman’s seat in 2028
The Philadelphia Democrat is set to lead the powerful House Budget Committee, the first Pennsylvanian to do so in nearly four decades.
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Philadelphia) said Wednesday he would not run for U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s seat in 2028, opting instead to focus on serving as chair of one of the most powerful committees in Congress after Democrats’ dominant victories to regain control of the U.S. House.
Boyle, who will begin his seventh term in January, is set to take the reins of the House Budget Committee, the first Pennsylvanian to do so in nearly four decades.
His decision takes a potentially formidable candidate off the board as Fetterman’s seat becomes the highest-profile Pennsylvania election after this year’s midterms. The senator has not said whether he will seek a second six-year term, though he has alienated his former voter base and Democratic allies while being largely absent from the job.
Boyle, Pennsylvania’s longest-tenured House Democrat and one of the most outspoken against Fetterman, had not ruled out a 2028 campaign. One of his colleagues, U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D., Allegheny), has more openly positioned himself to run.
Boyle said in a statement Wednesday that he had weighed both options and now believes he can be most effective in the House.
“For months, many of my supporters have urged me to consider running for U.S. Senate in 2028. I have always said that after the November 2026 election, I would make a decision based on one simple question: where can I have the biggest impact on public policy?” Boyle said. “After months of consulting many whom I respect, including current senators and past committee chairs, it is quite clear that I can have a much bigger impact on policy as Budget Committee Chairman rather than as a freshman member of the Senate.”
As the top Democrat on the committee while it was under Republican control for the last four years, Boyle would still have to be selected by his colleagues to serve as its chairman, though he is not expected to face opposition. Lawmakers and incoming members of Congress will return to Washington in the coming weeks to organize ahead of the next session in January.
Boyle will likely become the first Budget Committee chair from Pennsylvania since U.S. Rep. Bill Gray, another Philadelphia Democrat, led it from 1985 to 1989.
The group has critical sway over annual spending bills and economic issues — putting Boyle in charge at a time when voters have seemingly elected Democrats with a mandate to focus on affordability issues. Boyle has consistently focused on those topics, becoming one of his party’s “best messengers,” Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat in line to be the country’s first Black speaker of the House, said last year.
Jeffries credited Boyle for pushing back against President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which enacted tax cuts while trimming spending on Medicaid and food assistance — and the expiration of Affordable Care Act tax credits, which raised premiums for millions of Americans this year.
Boyle has also used his leadership position on the committee to take an early lead on Democrats’ messaging that tied the war in Iran to larger affordability issues as gas prices spiked. In September, a nonpartisan analysis he requested found the war was costing American taxpayers up to $3 billion per month. Voters on Tuesday repeatedly mentioned the war as a motivating factor when they rejected Republican candidates, and Democrats who won have promised to make ending the war a top priority moving forward.
“I look forward to utilizing my position as Budget Committee Chairman to finally get this nation’s fiscal health back on track, and bring more resources back home to our community,” Boyle said.
Boyle, 49, of Somerton, won an easy reelection Tuesday in a heavily Democratic district that stretches from Center City through Northeast Philadelphia.
When the new Congress starts, he will have served longer than all but two of Pennsylvania’s 17 federal lawmakers and be the dean of a much larger Democratic bloc. Four challengers to Republican incumbents — including U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, the last Republican serving in the Philadelphia area — won in the massive blue wave, tipping the final ranks of the Keystone State delegation in the House to 11 Democrats and six Republicans.
Deluzio, who was elected to a third term in a district outside Pittsburgh, was the incumbent Democrat who campaigned the most aggressively to flip those seats, including fundraising and events for candidates like Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie, who beat Fitzpatrick. His additional fundraising and messaging have fueled expectations that he will run for Senate, a prospect he said he is considering.
Fetterman, meanwhile, said in September that his future would become more clear after the midterms. As of Wednesday afternoon, he had not yet commented on his party’s generational victories the day before, which likely eliminated the possibility of him being a regular, and powerful, swing vote for the next two years.
