Two Democrats are seeking their party’s nomination in the May 19 primary to challenge incumbent Republican state Rep. Jeremy Shaffer in November.
Robert Bertha of West Deer and Jeremy Ferderber of Richland are vying for the Democratic nomination in the 28th state House District race.
Shaffer, elected in 2024, is unopposed in the GOP primary.
The state House district spans much of the northern tier of Allegheny County and dips down into Hampton. It includes Bradford Woods, Marshall, Pine, Richland and West Deer and parts of Hampton.
Neither Bertha or Ferderber have held an elected office. While Ferderber has never sought office before, Bertha ran for the 54th state House district in the 2018 Democratic primary.
A 2014 Deer Lakes graduate and lifelong West Deer resident, Bertha, 30, earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast production at Point Park University and a master’s in political management from George Washington University. He is the communications and program manager for the Northside North Shore Chamber of Commerce.
Bertha previously worked in external affairs and communications for the Millennium Challenge Corp., a federal international development agency founded by the George W. Bush administration in 2004. With the agency targeted by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, Bertha said he took a deferred resignation from the agency instead of being fired.
“I’ve seen the craziness that this current administration is waging at the federal level up close and personal in my time as a federal employee,” he said. “Harrisburg is our last line of defense from keeping that craziness from touching the lives of Pennsylvanians more than it already has.”
Bertha is married to his wife, Isabelle.
A 1996 graduate of Mars High School, Ferderber, 48, earned a degree in environmental science from Allegheny College in Meadville. He is vice president of operations for his family’s farm, Frankferd Farms Foods.
After college, Ferderber spent 17 years in Miami working in the environmental consulting field specializing in indoor air quality. He oversaw day-to-day, on-site operations after the 9/11 terrorist attack and conducted health and safety monitoring for multiple agencies, followed by a career as an expert in indoor environmental assessments in Florida.
“I never had political ambitions,” he said. “I’m just a guy. I’m a neighbor. I like to think neighbors can best represent their communities.”
Ferderber and his wife, Julie, have a daughter, 15, and son, 11.
Bertha said his frustration over rising costs spurred him to run.
“I’m fed up that people in our communities have to choose between healthcare and putting food on their table. I’m fed up at the rising costs of living and affordability across the district, the stranglehold it has on families with everything that’s going on,” he said.
Bertha said public schools should also do more to point students to trade and vocational opportunities instead of just four-year colleges.
“There are programs you can go to and get your vocational licenses and start your own small business right out of high school or you can join an apprenticeship that’s completely paid for and start a career as an iron worker making a decent salary right out of high school and not taking on any student debt,” he said.
Bertha said his top priorities are healthcare, affordability and education. He said the state should invest more in public schools and that Harrisburg can do more to help families afford the cost of daily life, including childcare, and so they don’t have to choose between food and healthcare premiums.
“I’m born and raised in West Deer Township. The communities in the 28th District are the communities I grew up in,” he said. “I’m a big believer in public service. My professional career has shown that. I can think of no better way to give back to the community that helped raise me than to be their advocate and voice in Harrisburg.”
Asked why he’s running, Ferderber said, “I kind of got sick and tired of being sick and tired about watching things and complaining about things and not being able to do much about things. I figure it would be a good way to represent my local community that I’ve grown fond of in my time being back here.
“I have two kids. I care about protecting the future that they are growing up in,” he said. “In a way, I feel it’s my civic responsibility to do something like this.”
Ferderber said he’d have many priorities.
“The big thing right now everyone is affected by is affordability and economic issues,” he said. “There’s not an easy solution to it. I think that lowering people’s healthcare costs would be a big win that would have bipartisan support.
“I strongly believe in supporting and developing more renewable resources in Pennsylvania. We see what’s going on with gas prices,” he said. “I think that by investing our hard-earned tax dollars back into our community infrastructure we can help to improve not just the livelihoods and quality of life for the residents, we can attract more businesses to do business in our area, helping lower the tax burden on the residents who have called those places home for a long time.”
Other top priorities include protecting human rights and women’s rights and restoring common decency.
“We’ve become so polarized in everything,” he said. “I’d like to think we can transcend that and get to a place where we can talk to each other with respect again.”