First, the good news- Ana Tiburcio won in the 22nd House District last night. Democrats keep their 102-101 majority. The Mayor, County Executive, and entire state legislative delegation all don’t wear egg for supporting the candidate. Not only did she win, but she won big. She got 67.28% of the vote. In other words, Bob Smith got a lower percentage than he did in 2022’s race. It was a blowout. Allentown’s Latino majority population now has a Latina State Representative, which is how it should normally be.

Now, the bad news- absolutely not a ****ing soul voted in that God forsaken election. I’m not kidding. 6.9% turned out to vote in this thing. Had Smith got the 3,662 votes he got in 2022, or if he had even got half the votes he got in that election, he would have defeated Tiburcio by a fairly comfortable margin and flipped the state house. 2,249 people out of 32,737 registered voters voted in this election. An election to empower someone to vote on your schools, roads, police, firemen, zoning laws, and literally basically every part of your every day life wasn’t intriguing enough for people.

Such is life on “Planet Allentown,” I guess. I’m not sure a vote total this low makes me think Representative-elect Tiburcio can beat Ce-Ce Gerlach, but now she’ll have at least a few weeks to get a check from every lobbyist in Harrisburg. Also, rumor has it that something “disqualifying” is going to be put out into the public about Gerlach, and my guess is we’ll get that in the next month or two. Gerlach has a base of support though, and I’m not sure the powers that be can dissuade her support, or for that matter beat it. This race will be very interesting to watch.

Perhaps a slightly different read here though- yes, Allentown has a recent history of poor turnout in elections, but are numbers this low emblematic of something greater in the air? 6.9% turnout suggests that people are not nearly as enthusiastic to vote as many people think. Now, the 2025 elections produced astronomical turnout, and perhaps that tells us more. Or perhaps it doesn’t. It’s brutally difficult to watch the news right now, and watching it doesn’t excite anyone. I guess we’ll find out where people’s heads are at in May.