The midterm elections are Nov. 3. WPSU spoke with both candidates running for the U.S. House, 15th district. In this interview, you'll hear from the Democratic nominee Ray Bilger. Bilger is a Centre County native who moved back to the area in 2020 after serving in the Air Force, Intelligence, and State Department for a total of 35 years. The 15th district covers a large stretch of central and northern Pennsylvania, including Centre, Clearfield, Cameron, Elk, Forest, Warren, McKean and Potter counties. WPSU also talked to the Republican in the race, incumbent Glenn "GT" Thompson.
Anne Danahy
Ray Bilger, thank you for coming in to talk with us.
Ray Bilger
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Anne Danahy
Your background is in the military and intelligence and the State Department, including the Air Force. Why are you running for political office now?
Ray Bilger
Why I'm running for political office right now, I think because of all of the experience that I've had with the various agencies that I've worked for, I see a lot of things that really we can fix and we can fix a lot faster than is being done right now. Especially after traveling through the 15th Congressional district, which is over 12,000 square miles, I saw a lot of the same issues that I had when I grew up here. Because one of the reasons why I went to the Air Force was because 40 years ago there were no opportunities for me. I was trying to put myself through college, and I couldn't afford my last year. So what could I do? I could either go into the service industry, which is really the only option here, or join the military. So I joined the military and since I came back and started traveling through the district, I've discovered that all the same reasons for me having to leave here to find my opportunities and to find my career, they're still here and they're a lot worse than outside this area.
Anne Danahy
Do you mean there aren't a lot of job opportunities for people who want to stay in the area, especially in the rural parts?
Ray Bilger
Not only that, but there just aren't enough opportunities, educational opportunities, for people who are looking for them, whether that be a technical school or whether that be higher education that's simply not available anymore. Just recently, you see that Penn State has sold a couple of its branch campuses. And I've been out to those areas. And people are decrying that because they say that's the only opportunity that people have to get out and to actually advance their lives.
Anne Danahy
What's one issue you think is of primary importance to Pennsylvania voters? We've just touched on a couple of them, but how would you like to see Congress address it specifically?
Ray Bilger
I think that affordability right now is the biggest issue by far, and it's becoming more and more of an issue every day. The way that we need to address that right now just immediately is we need to bring the congressional authority to levy tariffs and the power of the purse back to Congress. And another way we can do that is to enforce the War Powers Act. We need to actually be able to control our expenditures, which right now are not being controlled the way that the Constitution provided for it. We have three co-equal branches that are supposed to be involved in this whole process equally, and that's not happening.
Anne Danahy
So when you say control expenditures, are you talking about spending cuts?
Ray Bilger
We can be talking about spending cuts, but we can also be talking about using our money appropriately. The tariffs that have been levied right now have been really hurtful to the economy here. It's been really hurtful to our relationships abroad. And that's one of the things where I have a very, very intimate knowledge because I lived overseas for 14 years and working in the State Department and I worked with our foreign partners and foreign governments trying to formulate and deploy our policy. So when we alienate our allies by what's basically economic warfare, we really do ourselves harm because those are our trading partners as well. So we hurt ourselves in more ways than one.
Anne Danahy
You're a former Republican. When did you switch parties and why?
Ray Bilger
I switched parties on January 6th because I was working at the agency at that time and I have guilty knowledge, so to speak, of exactly what went on then and who was responsible. Knowing that, I gave my party three days to respond to that. The response that I got was not the response that I expected because many of these congressmen know exactly what I knew at the time. And yet they refuse to act on it.
Anne Danahy
What do you mean by "guilty knowledge"?
Ray Bilger
Because of my access, I was privy to a lot of information that does not get out into the general public. And anyone on the intelligence committees knows that.
Anne Danahy
Switching gears, data centers are drawing a lot of pushback across the political spectrum. Do you think they should be more regulated at the federal level? How would you like to see that addressed?
Ray Bilger
That's a big issue. We definitely need to regulate them because one of the things that I'd learned recently was that our electricity prices, I think everyone has noticed, they've gone up this summer. I think since the beginning of June or July, they've gone up. And so I looked at the rate increase and I looked up the reasons for that. Well, it turns out that Pennsylvania is part of a system that we share with Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. It's called the PJM. I always assumed that was a company, but boy, was I wrong. And the reasons for those increases are because of the demand on our electrical grid from big tech and from data centers, not necessarily all in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, because we all share the same grid. And that is why it's going up. So we definitely need, at a federal level, we need to regulate these data centers. Now, before we even get into regulating AI data centers, we need to regulate AI. As the tech director for cyber analysis at the National Security Agency, I helped develop some of the early models that we used back in the early 2000s of AI. The way that it's being developed right now is completely 180 degrees off of what it should be. We need to first put a fence around our data that we're using and then we develop our tools within that area, that boxed-in area, in order to adequately and responsibly develop these tools and develop AI.
Anne Danahy
On another topic, what specifically do you think Congress should be doing to deal with rising prices, everything from food to fuel? You talked about tariffs. Is there anything else?
Ray Bilger
Yes, definitely. We definitely need to rein in our spending. We are spending far too much on things that we really need not be thinking about. We're talking about bulldozing the East Wing. We're talking about the triumphal arch. We're talking about gilding statues, 24 karat gold, for goodness sakes. We're doing this. I mean, the optics alone are horrifying for anyone doing this. But the cost is just ridiculous.
Anne Danahy
But even if you put that aside and the government wasn't moving forward with those projects, how does that help people when they're going to fill their gas tanks or go to the grocery store?
Ray Bilger
Doing those things is not helping them. Another thing that we can do though is we can also, having worked in the Department of Defense for a very long time, I know just from a contracting and requirements process, we can reform. If we just reformed the requirements and procurement process and the contracting process in the DOD, we would have a much better system. We would save a lot of money and actually it would strengthen the DOD.
Anne Danahy
The 15th district you're running in leans heavily Republican. Do you really see yourself having a chance of winning?
Ray Bilger
Absolutely I do. I think I stand a really good chance of winning because I'm a veteran because I'm dedicated to working across the aisle. I don't work for just one party as unfortunately my opponent has come out and said specifically he would not attend any event that we invited him to and he has proven that because he refuses to show up at any of the town halls that I've been holding that we've invited him to. I have been out there and I've been talking to people. I have had more town halls just this month than our incumbent has had in nine years. That is going to win people over because they want to see their representative. They want their concerns to be heard. Even if you just drive through the areas, you see what the problems are. And we have so much potential in our rural areas. There is an enormous amount of potential there and it's not being utilized. It's just sitting there and it's degrading and we can't let that happen.
Anne Danahy
Ray Bilger, thank you so much for coming in to talk with us.
Ray Bilger
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
WPSU's interview with Republican nominee and incumbent Glenn Thompson aired Oct. 21, 2026.
