Crosswell Laps Crooksy as PA-7’s Dems Lack Cash for the Stretch Run

/ Rich Wilkins / 2 Comments
“Comrade Bernie, Please Send Help!”

I told you before that despite losing his manager to a job with the Governor, Republican Ryan Crosswell has a huge pile of money for his Congressional run. That’s sort of true. Yes, his shady out-of-town, union buster donors are writing him shit tons of money. He raised $443,757 in Q4, putting him at $1,144,864.79 for his 2025 fundraising. That’s pretty impressive. Until you look at the full report. Crosswell, who is virtually unknown yet to the voters of the 7th Congressional District, where he never lived until this election cycle, spent a whopping $532,615.04 so far in this election. No, he really hasn’t done any direct contact to voters yet. He has $612,250 on hand. That’s an astounding burn rate. I guess the important guys in DC really told him how to run his race. With that said, even this looks competent in the field. He has spent 46.5% of what he has raised so far. That’s absolutely incredible, and not in a good way.

Bob “Crooksy” Brooks must be taking the same advice, he’s just not as good at this. I guess that’s why Harrisburg bosses want to buy it for him. Crooksy got crushed again by Republican Crosswell, raising $301,698 even with the Governor’s help. To date, Crooksy has raised $609,957.05. He has spent an astounding $269,189.98 to date. This leaves him with $340,767.07. I couldn’t even believe his report. No one who doesn’t read this site knows who the hell this guy is yet, and he’s spent nearly half of his money already. If anyone hits him for stiffing his mother-in-law, hating Barack Obama, being a religious fanatic and gun nut, and posting racist shit online, he’ll have to divert his funds away from introducing himself to defending that. He’s spent 44% of his funds as is, and has little to show for it.

I have to admit, I did not think Lamont McClure would have this much trouble raising money, given his track record. But alas, here we are. McClure has raised $480,615.99 so far in the campaign, with $200k of that coming from himself. He raised just $21,770 in the last quarter. He has spent $193,025.79 to date. He has $287,590.20 on hand. Basically Crooksy has spent what he has on hand, Crosswell has spent more, and they’re still behind, which is really what he has to hang his hat on here. He has spent 40% of his money, which is far too much. His report is here. If everyone is going to be left throwing rocks though at the end, he probably wins that. The optics aren’t great, but he has less to introduce than these other folks.

Mark Pinsley’s campaign is in a worse version of the same situation. Pinsley raised $52,088 last quarter, and $125,194.46 for the year. He spent an utterly insane $75,177.31, or the majority of his money. He has $50,017.15 on hand, but also has a debt of $1,567.67. If you don’t believe me, check out his report. Listen, I actually like Mark personally, so don’t get this twisted. The guy has spent 60% of his money. I’m not sure anyone outside of Lehigh County knows much about him. He can basically afford like a little more than one piece of mail to the whole electorate right now.

Carol Obando-Derstine’s situation is interesting, because she raised six figures, but yet the finances look bleak. She raised $100,625 in Q4 and $431,919.36 for the year. She spent a crazy $308,411.36 so far, or most of her money. She has $123,508 on hand, and a $12,500 debt. She spent 71.4% of what she raised. You can check it out here. I guess she’s in a better place than Pinsley, but it feels like she should have spent much less.

Aiden Alexander Gonzalez report isn’t up yet, so we have no idea how he did. Lewis Arthur Shupe doesn’t even turn up a committee when you google him, so I’m going with God there.

Look, I think using fundraising numbers to pick your candidate is the dumbest thing ever. Does anyone really think the DCCC and national Democratic Party PACs aren’t going to come in here and spend in the general election? Of course they are, they have to, there’s no way we win the House and don’t win this seat- unless we nominate a dope of a candidate. You try to pick the candidate who has the best combination of good ideas and a chance to win, both at once. Perfect policy positions are meaningless if you have no shot of winning, and being the most electable candidate ever is worthless if you’re basically going to vote with the other side. The point of looking at these numbers is guessing what their chances of victory are. I don’t think any of them have enough money right now for the stretch run of this race. Television is expensive in the Philadelphia media market. Mail is not cheap in this day and age. Digital? Yeah, it’ll cost you. If you think field organizing is going to win you a race like this, just understand you need to scale up to a Congressional District’s sized field operation- which is expensive. Nobody has that here. Perhaps Crooksy’s dark money gets him there. Maybe Emily’s List gets Carol over the line. Maybe Crosswell just has another good quarter and out spends everyone two-to-one, and the fact that he’s a union-busting Republican doesn’t matter. Or, just maybe, McClure hangs on to this thing by spending wisely. I don’t know. This looks increasingly to me though like it’s a rock and spear chucking battle, and not an atomic age showdown.

As Crooksy Prepares to Debate (Without Press), Harrisburg’s Fat Cats Realize They Need to Buy Him This Race

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

Bob “Crooksy” Brooks had his office opening yesterday. There were about a dozen people who were in the photo one person posted, which is about what his excitement on the ground in PA-7 is- a couple of elected officials in Allentown, a couple of operatives, a couple of guys who are union members from unions that aren’t members of the Lehigh Valley Building Trades, a child who can’t vote, and like two people who came in from off the street. Quite impressive, right? Now to be fair, I’m not sure any candidate would have a huge number of people at an event like this yet, but both McClure and Obando-Derstine had more people at their announcements, Pinsley had more people at his meeting to organize petitions, and Crosswell isn’t even from here and had more people in some person’s living room the other night.

It’s right about now that “Crooksy’s” Harrisburg handlers are realizing they are going to have to astroturf this thing. There guy is getting out raised badly by Crosswell and even they know he’s much further behind McClure and Obando-Derstine than their poll that purposely excluded Pinsley said. So, here comes the astroturf group to save him:

Good Morning,

I hope this finds you well. I am writing today to invite you to a presentation regarding Stronger Together PA, an entity that will be supporting Bob Brooks in the race for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional district.

Bob is a Bethlehem firefighter who spent 20 years protecting his community. He was elected President of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association where he led statewide fights for fair wages, benefits, and safety. Bob has earned the endorsement of labor leaders, including IAFF and SEIU, and elected officials such as Governor Josh Shapiro, Congressman Chris Deluzio, and Senator Bernie Sanders. In Congress, Bob will protect good union jobs, focus on affordability, support public safety, and strengthen the Lehigh Valley’s local economy.

PA-07 will be one of the most competitive districts in the country. Bob is facing a crowded primary field, featuring career politicians and out-of-district challengers, and a well funded Republican incumbent. This entity will reach voters to share Bob’s worker first priorities to deliver the 18,000-32,000 required to win the primary and position Bob for success in the general election. 

We will be holding a presentation on February 2 at 5:00 PM over zoomto introduce you to our team, give you an insight into our strategies, and update you on the state of the race. If you are interested in attending, please rsvp to me at mailto:simone@spbstrategies.com. A zoom link for this meeting will be sent upon rsvping. Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.

Best,
Simone

If your product is defective, sometimes it takes more to fix him than it does to try and make everyone forget about it. How do you make people forget that he stiffed his mother-in-law out of $55k? How do you make people forget that he thinks Barack Obama “sucks?” How do you make people forget that he’s a religious radical and gun nut? How do you make people forget about racist posts? It takes a lot of coin.

One way is to make sure they never see it. So tonight is a Congressional debate at Lafayette College. The street word is that “Crooksy” and his team said they would not take part if media was invited. I’m sure they’d deny it, and I have no idea why any group would want to have a debate that isn’t covered, but I trust the source that told me this. I guess if no one sees that this fire is too big for Crooksy, nobody may know.

There are people sitting in jail right now for taking $50,000 and never paying it back. Crooksy is debating for Congress having done the same thing. And he’s doing it without public scrutiny.

Sultana Launches Quixotic Primary Against Lisa Boscola

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Earlier I told you that former Easton City Councilwoman Taiba Sultana was blaming State Senator Lisa Boscola for ICE. I said then she was going to run against Boscola in this year’s primary. Bernie O’Hare reports that she is now officially in. I’m setting her final percentage over/under at 22.5% if anyone wants to place a friendly wager. I’ll even give you +100.

The 18th District is simply not a leftist district. Yes, it’s a solidly Democratic seat, but I doubt many of us would vote for Karl Marx here. Lisa Boscola generally votes how this district’s people actually are- more conservative than Philadelphia and more liberal than Pennsyltucky. I am sure that some voters would like Senator Boscola to move left, but it isn’t really wise for the seat. If Taiba were going to run as a potential Senator in the mold of some of the Philadelphia delegation, she might even receive enough support *in the primary* to be scary, but come up short. She’s going to try and run to the left of that though. She’s also going to promise things that simply aren’t going to pass the Pennsylvania Senate, which also does have Senators like Doug Mastriano from Pennsyltucky too. This is a campaign to do nothing in Harrisburg, and it’s a campaign to represent close to no one.

Taiba is a nice person in person, though I found her campaign against Rep. Freeman in 2024 to really bother me. Insinuating that Bob Freeman is responsible for genocide anywhere is literally insane. There was also the whole petition forgery controversy in 2024 where someone signed Sultana’s petition as Senator Boscola from a totally fake address and obviously it wasn’t Senator Boscola, which was just weird. Obviously there was the arrest too, which I give her more slack for than most (People make mistakes, and while her’s was bad, there’s plenty of reasons to not support her that don’t involve judging her as a parent), but she seemed to be completely oblivious to the optics of the situation and launched an impossible State House campaign while it was ongoing. Of course there was also her continual attempts to pass a resolution from Easton City Council on Gaza, which really is not something Easton City Council is supposed to be doing. I can’t think of one argument to elect this woman in 2026. We’re going to get a steady diet of far-left rhetoric, identity politics of the cheapest grade, and personal attacks here. It’s pointless.

Lisa Boscola isn’t going to lose this race. Most voters aren’t going to take it overly seriously. Had Jon Irons run, he may have put forward a credible opposition to her, even though he would have lost too. Sultana has too many problems to answer for, and she will be forced to answer for them if she tries to make this nasty. In the end, this kind of politics just has to be stopped.

Far From Grandstanding, Siegel was Right to Evict ICE

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Josh Siegel has been in office for 25 days as Lehigh County Executive. He has already made national waves and excited liberal activists by announcing that he was evicting ICE from county office space. Now look, anti-ICE sentiment is strong, but abolishing ICE is still not a majority position in America, despite ICE shooting citizens in the street. For that reason, I’d probably not advise a candidate to go full hard line on the issue in normal circumstances. However, in this case, Siegel has the upper hand.

Our Congressional turnip, Ryan Mackenzie, came out and attacked Siegel for his decision. It was incredibly weak. He tried to make the distinction that these are Homeland Security Investigators and don’t actually arrest people for ICE. That’s all well and good, if we want to be super cute on the language, but Mackenzie has a problem here- they haven’t paid their rent to the county for three years. Is Mackenzie okay with the federal government stiffing the people of his district? ICE/Homeland Security/Trump need to stop being deadbeats and pay their bills. Maybe Mackenzie should stop paying his mortgage for three years and see if he still owns a home. This guy is shilling for absolute deadbeat behavior. I guess he’s trying to find common ground with Crooksy?

This isn’t an ideological position, this is just common sense. Josh Siegel’s oath was to the people of Lehigh County, not some deadbeat running DHS or in the White House. Ryan Mackenzie swore an oath to the constitution himself, but he’s added an amendment to kiss “Dear Leaders” ass, even when he screws his community. Good for Josh for reminding Mackenzie that his home community has a voice too, and they’d like it if their government at least had the decency to make them whole.