It wasn’t that long ago that Lehigh County was considered the more “red” county in the Lehigh Valley. It gave us a fairly consistent line of powerful Republicans at the federal and state level, such as Pat Toomey, Charlie Dent, and Pat Browne- or more succinctly, not MAGA. The GOP hasn’t won the County Executive’s post since 2005 (or right after George W. Bush was re-elected. The once Republican suburbs became the key for Susan Wild’s six year run. Nick Miller and Lisa Boscola represent the county in two of the state senate seats. The Republican Party is virtually obsolete in Allentown and Bethlehem, something that wasn’t true when I was growing up. In short, they’re not good at this.

It almost wasn’t that way in 2021. Phil Armstrong had a difficult re-election campaign. In 2017, he won by about 5% over a well funded and fairly normal Brad Osborne with 25,085 votes. In 2021, turnout went considerably up in the county by comparison (vote by mail) to 74,108 votes cast. Maria McLaughlin carried the county for Supreme Court with 37,002 votes and Lori Dumas carried it for Commonwealth Court with 34,303 votes. Timika Lane got more votes than Dumas (34,719) lost the county to Megan Sullivan (who actually got the most votes of all judicial candidates), and Democrats lost two of the three Court of Common Pleas seats (Tom Caffrey, Tom Capehart), with Zac Cohen carrying the third seat by 5 votes over David Ritter (trust me, I remember it well). As for Armstrong, well, he actually conceded defeat at one point in the night, which is only funny because he actually thought he was going to need to in 2017 and I kept telling him he was fine. Armstrong got 51.8% (36,873) to Glenn Eckhart’s 48.1% (34,255), a fairly close race for running against a guy who lost his seat as Controller. Republicans actually won 3 of the 5 commissioner districts as well, marking what was probably their best year in the county in years.

In 2023, the Democrats beat the brakes off of the Republicans in Lehigh County. Dan McCaffrey won the county by over 14% with 42,333 votes (57.03%). Jill Beck and Timika Lane carried the Superior Court race in the county comfortably, and Maria Battista is running again. Matt Wolf won the Commonwealth Court race by just under 8,000 votes, a blowout (55.2% to 44.6%). Democrats won all four Commissioner seats, and by a lot, with Jon Irons getting fourth and still beating the top Republican candidate by over 3,000 votes. The only contested row office race was Coroner, and Dan Buglio won by over 13%. It was, to be blunt, an ass kicking.

So what was the difference? In 2021, turnout was 74,108, or 30.9% of voters. In 2023, turnout was 75,127, or 31.1%. Yes, that’s slightly more, but it is not the kind of jump that should explain that kind of flip. Taking a good look at the current numbers for 2025, Lehigh County has 76,320 likely voters (voters in 2 of the last 4 county elections plus voters who have been mailed a ballot). Democrats hold a pretty substantial advantage in registration among these voters, with 37,661 to 31,823 for the Republicans, and another 6,836 who either independent, Green, or Libertarian. Republicans would need to win nearly all of the independent voters (literally over 90%) or cut into the Democrats ranks to win the race. On paper, Roger Maclean might not be an awful candidate to try that. He’s raised a paltry sum of money compared to Josh Siegel though, who is skillfully pointing out that Maclean isn’t up to the job. Also, his party is trying to use Charlie Kirk to inspire turnout. That’s not going to win over non-Republican voters to their cause.

It’s important to start out understanding Lehigh County this way- it’s similar to Northampton County, but the GOP has not won an Executive race there in two decades, they haven’t carried the county for President at all in that time period, they haven’t won the county for the Congressional candidate on their ticket since Charlie Dent left, and I guess basically I’m telling you that even their good years, they are not likely to win. The big reason is still Allentown, but they have steadily made gains in Allentown during the Trump era for President, and that still hasn’t changed the results because they’re losing voters in the suburbs, particularly the highest educated neighborhoods. But why did they get close in 2021? What was the difference? The answer can be found in voters who voted in 2021, but not in 2023 and have not yet received a ballot. The Republicans hold a roughly 2,600 voter advantage among these people. This Republican leaning group of voters came out and made it close in 2021, but they didn’t show up at all in 2023.

If turnout is somewhere between 2021’s and the 76,320 likely voters I have currently in the screen, there’s not much chance Maclean does all that well against Siegel. His whole campaign so far is “that liberal kid grew up in New Jersey!” and the days of that kind of crap exciting people are long over. Much like in Northampton County, the GOP’s best chance of changing their recent luck begins when *more* voters show up than are expected. In both counties, 2021 voters who didn’t vote in 2023 and haven’t requested a ballot have to come out for them, and maybe even some mid-term voters from their party too. Much like in Northampton County, I don’t think they have the guy to do it. The one caveat I will say here though is that this is basically an analysis of the Executive race, as Lehigh has a recent history of voting very different in their Court of Common Pleas races. Mulqueen may pull out a win without the electorate moving at all, and almost certainly will if turnout goes high.

My, my, how things are changing.