In less than a week, Election 2025 will be over. In Pennsylvania, that means no more commercials with judges in them, very soon. The overwhelming bulk of the attention is on the Supreme Court retention race, and rightfully so. Justices Dougherty, Donohue, and Wecht have been fair, extremely fair, and have protected Pennsylvania from some of the ridiculous shit that has gone on across the country. Even when they threw out the partisanly gerrymandered Congressional map in 2018, they didn’t draw a left-wing utopia map to give Democrats a huge edge. They drew a 9-9 map and stated that Pennsylvanian’s have a right to fair districts. They gave every region that could support a Congressional district a district. They have kept our state from becoming a partisan Petri dish. These judges are protecting the law and deserve a second ten year term.

Make sure you go to the end of the ballot, whether you vote on Election Day or by mail, and check yes for Justices Kevin Dougherty, Christine Dougherty, and David Wecht.

Don’t stop there though. Superior Court Justice Alice Beck Dubow and Commonwealth Court Judge Michael Wojcik are also up for retention. Beck Dubow serves on a narrowly divided court partisanly, and yet has spent the last decade being a fair and impartial judge on one of the busiest courts in the country. The Superior Court is the last court that has to consider your appeal, and they need her for another ten years. Judge Wojcik is on a rather conservative court, but finds common ground with his colleagues every day to uphold the law on matters of policy and government. Go to the end of the ballot, after the Supreme Court Judges, and vote YES for these two as well.

No, you’re not done voting to retain Judges. In Northampton County, Judges Paula Roscioli and Sam Murray have to run for retention. These two judges sit on the bench every day in Easton and hear literally every kind of case- from armed robbery to a custody battle, a civil lawsuit to a PFA. If you’re saying to yourself that you don’t hear much about them, like you forgot them over the last ten years, THAT IS A GOOD THING. Common Pleas Judges don’t belong on the news, because that usually means they did something wrong. These people are literally not allowed to be political at all. They are supposed to just do their job. They have, for ten years. That’s why you don’t hear much about them. That’s why you need to go to the very end of the ballot and vote YES to retain them for another ten years.

Judges are critically important in our society, but they are not the only things that matter in this election. Here in Northampton County, you have three separate races you need to vote for. One is a County Executive, which will change for the first time in eight years this coming January. The County Executive runs the county on a day to day basis. Some things the Executive oversees are the Gracedale county senior citizens home, the department of children and youth, preserving open farmland space, a courts system, the public defenders office, replacing and repairing some bridges, and a whole host of other very basic, day to day functions of our society. You don’t want to put Tom Giovanni or his puppet masters in charge of this government. You do want to put County Controller Tara Zrinski in charge. With the County feeling the crunch of less or no money coming from the Federal and State Governments, you need someone like Zrinski, with a deep knowledge of the county’s finances and the right values to protect our elderly, our sick, children in broken families, and our environment amidst fiscal uncertainty. The next Executive will face some very difficult decisions leading the county forward, and will very likely have to raise taxes to execute functions that have been mandated on them by Washington and Harrisburg. You need someone who will protect the taxpayers and those most in need, as much as you can possibly do so.

The race for the vacant seat on the Court of Common Pleas between Jeremy Clark and James Fuller offers less stark of a contrast. For one thing, Judges can’t say how they will rule on a case, so when running for a new seat, you have to guess. Jeremy Clark is a really solid guy, he’s experienced, smart, and has served his country before as a member of the armed forces. Fuller and I went to school together, and he was always a quiet guy, which is a great character trait in a judge, and his legal work absolutely qualifies him to be a judge. Knowing both, I won’t say anything negative about them. I’m going to vote for Clark, because he shares the values that I do, but there’s no monster in this race.

There are ten seats candidates (five seats), all at-large, up for grabs on the Northampton County Council, and honestly this race depresses me. I am definitely not voting for all five Democrats on the ballot. In fact, I’ll be honest, removing partisanship, the Republicans ran a better, more accomplished ticket. Right now, I’m only going to endorse you voting for Jason Boulette and I guess, Dave Holland, who I didn’t vote for in the primary, but seems perfectly fine, I guess. I voted for Lori Vargo Heffner in each of her past elections, and might even again, but some of her decisions this term were deeply disappointing, particularly when she voted with the Republican minority to give a warehouse in the Slate Belt a tax break, when she voted against her fellow General Purposes Authority board member Paul Anthony to be on the Council, and her vote against a county health center. She decided in this term to be a “check” on the County Executive, which would be fine if he were doing things the public opposed or that contradicted his past statements, but that was not the case. He ran on protecting Gracedale, preserving open farmland, and not raising taxes, which is what he did. There was no need for a “check” on what 56% of the county voted for. Lori is a wonderful human being and she is absolutely smart and qualified to serve on the council. I’m not going to tell you to vote for her or not though, because she did some things I frankly don’t support. She is absolutely one of the five best people on the ballot, but I’m troubled here.

I will not be voting for Theresa Fadem or Nadeem Quyuum. I don’t know Fadem at all, and all I have seen of her campaign consisted of her talking about things the county council has no say over, like affordable housing. The last thing the council needs is another activist who doesn’t really know what county government does, but wants to be heard. Nadeem ran his race for Controller two years ago talking about affordable housing too, and he and his wife waged an ugly campaign against State Rep. Bob Freeman, focusing on “genocide” in Gaza, something Freeman neither supports or has anything to do with. Sorry, I can’t sign for that. Fortunately, these two are barely actively campaigning, and hopefully they will not win. There are some decent people running on the Republican side, but none of them would benefit from my endorsing them, as their voters probably mostly perceive that they disagree with my political positions (I doubt they do as much as they think). At least three of their candidates have family members that are good friends of mine. I just don’t think it would be helpful for me to say anything nice about them, even as people, in this political environment. Unfortunately there are people in their own party who would make that a negative for them. Also, at the end of the day, I’m reluctant to publicly endorse a candidate who I’m probably going to disagree with 60% of the time or more on council, as I won’t want to defend that later. Do I really want this person on council, or do I just think they’re a better, more qualified human than some folks on my side? Right now, I will tell you that I probably leave at least one space blank in this race, if not three.

Here in Palmer Township, we have a few local elections. Brian Snyder is unopposed in his school board race, so all I’m going to tell you here is he’s not this guy. Baron Vanderburg is unopposed to replace Zeke Bellis for the next four years as township Supervisor, so I could say nothing here, but I will just go ahead and tell you that Baron is one of the smartest, most dedicated, and hard working people in local government that I know, and I hope you enthusiastically vote for him. I used to serve on the Board of Auditors with Stephen Colbeth, and he’s unopposed, but vote for him anyway. Doreen Umholtz has been Tax Collector forever, and she’s unopposed to stay there, which is good. There are two contested Supervisor seats on the ballot in the township. First, I’m going to tell you to vote for Tung-To Lam, he’s a hard working young guy that knows township government already and has run an active campaign. Then I’m going to tell you that I don’t know any of the other three very well. From everything I’ve been told by current members of the board, Marcella Cardone will probably be the most productive and “no harm” of the three, so vote for her.

That’s my ballot. If you really want to dig further, and you have my phone number, you can call me to ask.

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.

In 2021, 71,335 people voted. Maria McLaughlin narrowly carried the county for Supreme Court with just below 50% of the vote. She was the only judicial Democrat to do that well in the county. Lamont McClure was about 2,700 votes over 50% in the County Executive’s race, beating Steve Lynch by 12%. Democrats took the top three spots out of the five County Council seats.

In 2023, 72,436 people voted. Dan McCaffery won the county by 14% for Supreme Court, hitting 57%. Jill Beck, Timika Lane, and Matt Wolf all won the county in statewide judicial races. Brian Panella won a seat on Common Pleas by 8%. Tara Zrinski beat John Cusick by 8% for Controller. Democrats won the only two contested County Council seats fairly easily.

Recent history has been good to Democrats. They have not lost an Executive, Controller, District Attorney, or Court of Common Pleas race in the county since 2013. Likely Turnout numbers say that trend has a decent chance to continue. Likely voters (voters who voted in 2 of the last 4 county elections) plus people who have been mailed a vote-by-mail ballot favor Democrats by a 36,405 to 30,037 margin. There are 7,385 independents, 225 Libertarians, and 40 Greens who also meet this criteria. The total number of voters expected under this screen are 74,092. At this turnout, it’s very likely Tara Zrinski will be the next Executive and Jeremy Clark will win the seat on the Court of Common Pleas. I’d also expect “yes” for the sitting Supreme Court Justices to carry the county.

There are ways for things to still swing the other way though. First off, turnout could simply fall short of expectations. A turnout similar to 2021 would likely be more competitive, as McClure outperformed the ticket as a whole that year by over 4,500 votes. Even then though, you have to remember that Zrinski was the top vote getter for Council, and she could still win. The second possibility for the GOP is that they win independents by a crushing margin- but they would need north of 70% of independents to make that happen. The third possibility is that the Republicans pull over a sizable chunk of Democrats. In reality, the GOP needs a little bit of all three, or a massive surge of federal election year Republican voters to show up, for which there is no sign of it happening right now.

I think the one certainty for me is that the strategy of the Northampton County GOP is not conducive to them pulling this off. Mailing about Charlie Kirk and being adversarial about vote-by-mail and early voting is not going to make them appeal to more moderate voters. So while they do have a chance, and there are factors beyond what the parties do (Is the Northampton Democratic Party doing anything?), right now Northampton County Republicans are probably swimming a bit uphill. Things aren’t trending well for them either. A few weeks ago they had opportunities to close in. Now they actually trail in non-2023 voters who are requesting ballots by 7,336 to 6,765. In other words, the unlikely voters becoming likely because they requested a ballot are moving towards the Democrats fairly quickly. If that holds, the outcome seems strongly likely to be obvious.

Tom Giovanni doesn’t talk much. Up until recently his supporters were calling that a good thing. Now, as one Republican put it, “there’s no campaign.” Giovanni has barely mailed anyone, but he’s focusing in on talking to Republican voters, even telling them to vote for him to vote for Charlie Kirk- I kid you not, both county GOP groups are doing this garbage. Giovanni passed on debating Tara Zrinski for Executive, then could barely put together a sentence once he did his individual interview on WFMZ. You could see why he wasn’t saying much. It turns out Giovanni let his County Republican Party Chairman negotiate the format for him. Seriously, he’s running for Executive and won’t make basic decisions. In a recent council meeting he sat by quietly as that same chairman and one of his colleagues argued that the Executive does not have the power to set policy for the county’s elections office. That’ll probably be his excuse for not mailing ballots out if he’s Executive next year. He can’t, his party chairman said so. As I wrote about Giovanni before:

The question is not what Giovanni will do as Executive, the question is whether this man is in a coma or has a pulse at all in his own campaign. As the Republican Congressman, Republican County Party Chairman, and other two incumbent Republican Councilmen are up there focusing all of their attacks on a guy who isn’t going to be appearing on any ballots in 2025, Giovanni is either unwilling or incapable of putting together a coherent sentence, hence why he was terrified to debate Zrinski. Rather than debating, he had his Republican Party Chairman negotiate two separate appearances on WFMZ to “discuss,” or in his case lie about, the issues. This is because Giovanni is simply not capable of saying anything coherent and is better off letting better spokespeople explain his terrible plans for the County.

So what are Giovanni’s plans? Well, let’s be honest, they’re setting up to use the “mismanagement” of funds to come in and argue that it’s time to privatize/sell/close Gracedale. This has been the GOP’s position for 15 years in the county, and they’re going to go as far as they can to get it done. They’re going to use the excuse of the Federal Government cutting Medicaid and Harrisburg not really doing anything to fix it, as well. They’re going to start by demanding he acquiesce to the Council as the new Executive, then he’ll tell them it can’t be run. If the public outcry is too much, they’ll just spend their time making cuts to the place so that it becomes unworkable. Don’t kid yourself, Giovanni may not fully get it, but his handlers have made it clear to him that they oppose a safety net for county residents. It’s coming.

Next, Giovanni’s administration, either unilaterally or by acquiescing to council’s demands, will come in and chip away at access to voting in Northampton County. He’ll immediately kill the satellite voting sites, probably get rid of the four drop box locations (or at least cut them), and probably instruct the election’s office at a minimum to mail out ballots later than the current office does. He may just kill all vote by mail and early voting, citing the President’s illegal executive order on the matter. Does Giovanni fully understand this now? Who knows. He knows that he’s going to do what his handlers tell him though.

This guy is probably a nice enough guy personally, but he’s either over his head or paralyzed by all the different masters he’ll have to answer to if he wins. Apparently he recently went out of his way to say he will *not* be bringing former Executive and current Councilman John Brown in as Director of Administration or anything else. I find that interesting, as Brown is probably their most successful recent county official at winning elections (other than the one he didn’t win), but Giovanni seems to have felt the need to put that out there. Of course the answer is obvious though. County Republican Chairman Glenn Geissinger recently took a job in Schuylkill County as finance director, apparently saying he’d move there soon. I’m sure he will if Giovanni is unsuccessful. And if he wins? Geissinger gets to come take over this courthouse and get rid of vote-by-mail and vote-on-demand sites, gut Gracedale and sell it, let ICE run wild in the courthouse, and DOGE’ing as many people in the county as possible. It’s plain and obvious. He’s controlling what his party’s nominee says and where. This campaign is all about “righting the wrongs” of 2017 for him, when Zrinski was one of the four Democrats who knocked him off.

You can tell me I’m wrong, but that’s like Trump saying he didn’t know anything about Project 2025.