Delco Republican Nicholas Manganaro is running for PA-5 seat
Haverford resident Nicholas Manganaro is running for Congress to stop the wasteful spending that’s fueling inflation and leading to hardships for the average person.
“I’m looking at the level of default spending,” said Manganaro, 69. “The default spending has led to inflation. Inflation has led to people’s lives being unaffordable,” he said. “People’s lives being unaffordable is either making them fall into despair or look for more (benefits) from the government, which is what leads to more government spending and higher deficits. And eventually a default for the nation. So, I want to be the doorstop and stop the failure of the economy, in my own small way.”
Manganaro, a Republican, grew up in Chester County and majored in math at Reed College. Later, he earned an MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He’s challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-5th). Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Manganaro worked as an analyst for the power industry before he “embedded” himself in finance, where he worked for major financial companies like J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Black Rock and Glenmede Trust, as well as Oliver Wynman and Co., an advisor to multinational financial institutions.
“Mary Gay Scanlon has no real platform other than hatred for President Trump,” said Delaware County Republican Chairman Frank Agovino. “Nick is trained in the finance world and understands the imperative of fiscal responsibility. He will represent everyone in Congress and will even attend the State of the Union address.”
In addition to voting for legislation that led to inflation, like the Inflation Reduction Act, which raised inflation, she recently supported the extension of the “temporary” Affordable Care Act (ACA) supplements, he said.
“She also supported several continuing resolutions for budgeting purposes that kept funds flowing to programs without adequate oversight,” he said. Scanlon has “pretty much supported every additional expenditure program or government grant program.”
He also faults her opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“I think that’s destructive,” said Manganaro. “ICE is a program that was created by Congress, funded by Congress, and she should have some respect for a program that’s trying to keep citizens from being killed and hurt.”
“There are a lot of car accidents in this area and around the country, from people who can’t read signs, truck drivers, as well as people behind the wheel.”
“They arrive. They get their driver’s licenses somehow. They get their Social Security card somehow. And then they’re on the road, even if they can’t read English. It doesn’t seem to matter,” said Manganaro.
He gave some examples of crimes allegedly committed by the “newcomers,” because of local authorities’ lack of cooperation with ICE, including a Colombian national released by Delaware County authorities and charged with child sex assault; an Ecuadorian arrested in Havertown with DUI and indecent exposure charges; and a Guatemalan arrested in Upper Darby for assault and other offenses.
However, Manganaro is pro-legal immigration.
“I’m in favor of people who want to be here. My grandparents were immigrants on my dad’s side. They arrived in the early part of the 20th Century, with that big wave.”
“At that time, you could not enter the country to live unless you had a source of income or people who were going to support you. There was no welfare. There was no housing support. They wanted to be Americans. They wanted to get ahead.”
One of his great-grandfathers helped former New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia “get out the Italian vote.”
“That’s the only political connection I’m aware of,” Manganaro joked.
Asked about the war with Iran, Manganaro said, “I am not in favor of this war.”
“I understand the timing,” he said. “The timing was because the Iranian economy was a mess, and the people were restive. It seemed like an opportunity. But it doesn’t seem like they did the work on the ground to make it an opportunity.”
“I find it hard to believe that the Iranian people at this point are going to rise up in large numbers to support it because the IRGC is going to shoot them. They have no weapons. The Second Amendment is a good thing. And also, if we blow up their infrastructure, that’s going to make the lives of the regular people very difficult.
“I’m just hoping it is over as quickly as possible and the Iranian people are free from this tyranny,” said Manganaro.
Rising electric and natural gas prices are cutting into people’s budgets.
“Although I support the hydrocarbon power business, coal, oil, fracking, I think those are good things,” said Manganaro. “But it has to be overseen in such a way so there’s not a lot of seeping into the water system.”
“Having grown up out in the country in Chester County, I don’t want the air and water messed up,” he added.
“I also support an all-of-the-above agenda for electrical power,” he said. “As of the end of 2025, power in Pennsylvania is up seven percent, and power in the nation as a whole is up 0.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, he said.
He noted that when Governors Tom Wolf and Josh Shapiro “entered into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) with New York and New Jersey, they put their foot on the coal business. They stopped permitting power plants unless they were green energy plants. And they did not support the grid through energy-pricing initiatives.”
But there are new technologies for nuclear power, such as miniature plants and repurposing technology from naval nuclear power plants, which have a higher concentration of uranium fuel.
“They’re more compact. There’s a place for those in the power ecosystem in Pennsylvania,” said Manganaro. “The grid is a huge hangup, and that’s because of the policies of Wolf, Shapiro, and the whole green agenda.”
Carbon emissions can be reduced without “windmills or solar panels.”
“The windmills break, and solar panels break down, and you have to replace them every five years.”
With windmills, “the blades break down. They’re getting piles of them building up in Texas, and when they break up on the shore and wash up on the beach, you really don’t want to get stabbed with carbon fiber remnants from the windmills.”
He noted that a new Microsoft data center will use power from restarting the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
He also opposes healthcare mandates under the ACA.
“We’re all mandated to have health insurance,” said Mandanaro. “It got very big, very bureaucratic. The doctors got shunted to the side. And when the doctors got shunted to the side, all the patients suffered even more. So, the results of the ACA have been disastrous.”
“Insurance costs have gone up,” he said. “We were supposed to save $2,300.”
Manganaro believes President Trump’s healthcare plan would be better. It includes lower prescription drug costs and money sent directly to American citizens to purchase their own health insurance.
As for housing, he said portable mortgages might help. Part of the problem is that about fifteen percent of people in this area own their homes outright and are reluctant to move. Others with a low-interest-rate mortgage also stay put rather than move to another house with a higher mortgage rate.
“Newcomers brought in under the Biden administration are given housing,” he said. “They need a place to live. That all raises the scarcity of housing. And scarcity increases prices.”
Also, smaller numbers of young people are getting married, so fewer households with two incomes are better able to afford a house. And home prices are now five times the median income, he said.
Manganaro is putting his own capital into the housing market through Property Square Solutions, LLC. He lends money to people who buy and rehab houses.
“Living on my assets makes me very attuned to inflation,” he said. “It’s what I do with my retirement funds.”
“I live a very modest life,” said Manganaro, the divorced father of two adult children, Robert, 26, and Grace, 24.
Linda Stein is a Philadelphia-area journalist.
