Born in Nicholson, Pennsylvania, Sherwood attended Lackawanna Trail High School and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1963, and spent the next two years in the U.S.

In 1998, Sherwood won the Republican nomination to replace 10th District Congressman Joseph McDade, who was retiring after serving 36 years in Congress.

For the better part of half a century, the 10th had been a relatively compact district covering the northeastern corner of the state, stretching just far enough to the south to grab Scranton, by far its largest city.

Sherwood successfully ran for re-election from this new district against third-party candidate Kurt Shotko in 2002 and 2004, in both cases winning with over 80 percent of the vote.

The report of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department stated, "Both parties have left out significant information or are not willing to discuss in detail what actually happened.

"[4] The details of that incident went unnoticed until 2005, when Veronica Hannevig, who ran against Sherwood on the right wing Constitution Party ticket in 2004, distributed a copy of the police report to several newspapers and television stations.

The story reports that Sherwood agreed to pay her about $500,000 but a confidentiality clause requires Ore to forfeit some of the money if she talks publicly about the case.

In April 2006, Martha Rainville, a Republican running for the U.S. House seat in Vermont, announced that she would return a campaign contribution from Sherwood’s political action committee.

[14] In the general election in November, Sherwood lost to Democrat Chris Carney, a former Defense Department consultant and navy lieutenant commander.

Carney criticized Sherwood's record on the issues, but also ran what the Associated Press described as "a hard-hitting commercial focusing on the [extramarital] affair".

Addressing viewers, Sherwood said, "While I'm truly sorry for disappointing you, I never wavered from my commitment to reduce taxes, create jobs and bring home our fair share."