There’s going to be a lot of ink wasted on what happened yesterday. People are going to try and argue that Sherrill and Spanberger prove that moderate Dems win, which I tend to believe in more purple districts and statewide races. Others are going to argue that Mamdani shows that bold progressives win. It’s quite frankly a stupid argument. What kind of Democrat didn’t win? Are there things to learn about 2026 from the data? Yes. Ultimately what you should take away first and foremost from this is that when your actions, be it a trade war, shutting down the government, cutting people’s health care, or yanking their food stamps, end up making people worried about their next meal, their housing, their job, or their health care, you’re probably going to lose. This isn’t ideological. It’s survival.
Terry Fadem and Nadeem Quyyum had basically no resources, and beat the Republican candidates for County Council by over 13,000 and 9,000 votes each. Tara Zrinski meanwhile ran a hard campaign and earned a record breaking margin and became the first woman elected as Northampton County Executive. Jeremy Clark ran hard for his win on the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas, while Mark Stanziola was largely outspent in Lehigh County where he won easily. Democrats won the Bucks row offices with moderates, while they won state legislative seats in Virginia with all different candidates. There was no one specific type of Democrat that won tonight. Yes, some types won by more. None were really all that close though. And I can’t come up with a competitive race that they really lost. Nothing really mattered.
Running for office is hard, and the fact that this was simply a unanimous decision tonight doesn’t take away from the achievement of running a successful campaign. These people all put their names and reputations on the line in hopes of winning a race, and I salute them for that. With that said, there’s no deeper message in tonight. Donald Trump went too far, and voters reacted. They both gave large percentages of the vote to Democrats, and turned out in greater numbers than we had ever seen before. If you put your name on the ballot as a Democrat tonight in a place Democrats had any chance to win, you won. If you were a Democrat who crossed over, like Pat Dugan in Philadelphia, Ed Ducal in Allentown, or Roger Maclean in Lehigh County, you got your ass kicked. There was no interest in any of that. Even decently liked Republicans lost races tonight in any county or two that was even moderately purple. This was an outright rejection of Trump. Trump will never again be on the ballot, and Republicans haven’t done well trying to be like Trump when he’s not on the ballot too. Make of that what you will. Last night was far more decisive than any previous beating.
In recent years, Lehigh County is a different place than it used to be. Even as late as my college years, Lehigh County was considered harder for Democrats to win than Northampton. Boy, that’s changed. Beginning with Don Cunningham and carrying through Tom Mueller and Phil Armstrong, the GOP has been kept out of the County Executive’s seat for 20 years. Something tells me Roger Maclean isn’t the guy to stop that trend, but let’s hold that thought a second.
Right now, Lehigh County turnout looks fairly similar to Northampton County turnout. Likely Election Day voters plus those who have already returned a vote-by-mail ballot come out to 76,788 voters. Democrats hold the edge, 36,677 to 33,170. That’s not an overwhelming blowout. The 6,941 independent and third party voters we are expecting could easily tip this election either way. There are 8,253 vote-by-mail ballots still out though, and Democrats hold an edge of they lean towards the Democrats by 2,487. Basically, this is a mirror image of Northampton County, with Democrats holding an edge of around 3,500 votes and looking to gain through the remaining vote-by-mail ballots. Republicans either need to win a landslide with independent and third party voters, get an unusual number of Democrats to cross over, or need to turn out a lot of unlikely Election Day voters. None of this seems highly likely, but it is notable that the Lehigh County GOP may be in no worse of shape than their Northampton County brethren.
Roger Maclean, like Tom Giovanni, is a former Democrat. I find neither to be overly exciting, but I’m also not ready to say they’re the craziest people the GOP could have ran. Giovanni made his switch many years ago though, and has had time to prove himself to his party’s voters. Maclean basically made his move last week. Will a few thousand unlikely Republican voters make the trip to the polls today to vote for him? I highly doubt it. Will Maclean pull over a substantial number of Democratic voters? That’s probably his hope, but I doubt it happens in this environment. He’s had to straddle appeasing his MAGA base and appealing to moderates this whole race, and that’s going to make this really hard. For Maclean to win this, he’ll probably need a high number of crossover voters and need a blowout with independents. He just didn’t run the kind of campaign that probably does that. Northampton County’s GOP might hold human sacrifices in the Slate Belt somewhere and Lehigh’s version holds witch trials in Schnecksville or something. I’m basically saying their leadership isn’t allowing a whole lot of sanity from their ranks, and that makes it very hard to win these off year races.
There is one more way to look at this race though, and that’s to look at it compared to recent past elections. In 2023, 75,127 people cast a ballot. 51,622 of them voted on Election Day, while 23,123 voted by mail. The Democrats won every statewide judicial race in the County by *at least* 4,999 votes, they swept the Commissioner at-large seats 4-0 with a 4,500 vote margin from their 4th candidate to the GOP’s first, and won both County row office races by more than 8%. They were considerably more competitive in 2021. That year, 74,108 people voted overall, with 51,183 voting on Election Day and 22,214 voting by mail. Those numbers are not wildly different than 2023. The GOP actually won two of the four statewide Judicial seats in the county. They won 2 of the 3 seats on the Court of Common Pleas. They lost the Executive race by only 2,618 votes, a margin that was close enough that Phil Armstrong at one point was conceding that he lost the race. Republicans won 3 of the 5 Commissioner district seats up that year. This at least has to make you stop and pause for a second. It’s not like Glenn Eckhart, who lost a couple of Controller races, is Pat Toomey or Charlie Dent. He almost won though. The turnout wasn’t really much different than 2023, or what I’m predicting today. One has to think then that it was simply who voted in 2021, as opposed to 2023. School board results in Parkland, East Penn, and Southern Lehigh swung pretty hard from 2021 to 2023, so either the voters really changed their mind or they were different voters. Maybe today we’ll answer that. Signs aren’t great for the GOP though. There are already more ballots returned than there were in 2021 or 2023. They’re probably going to get crushed in the mail. They’re down more than 9,700 on registration, not quite as bad as Northampton, but probably too much to take.
My guess is that Democrats win the Executive seat and the GOP wins the Judge seat. Patricia Mulqueen has a record that probably pulls over some Democrats to vote for her, Lehigh County voters do tend to cross lines in judge races. Josh Siegel outspent Roger Maclean by a 10:1 margin and certainly isn’t a heretic to Democratic voters. I think Siegel wins this race by 4-5,000 votes, with independents generally breaking the Democrats way in Lehigh County. What I would watch for, interestingly, is Allentown. Matt Tuerk won the primary by a landslide and the general election never came to fruition then. Will voters show up? Will Latinos continue to slide away from Democrats? How much of that retired Mack Trucks base of white voters will show up for Maclean, who really should be their kind of candidate on paper? If Allentown looks like normal, and Siegel simply holds what he should in the larger suburban towns, this won’t be a nail biter. If a good chunk of the remaining vote-by-mail comes in, Siegel could win this going away.
Larry Holmes turned 76 years old today. He is, without question, one of the top ten, and probably one of the top five heavyweight boxers of all-time, when he was in his prime. He is often overlooked by new fans, in part because he wasn’t a trash talker, but also because his style of boxing was purely fundamental and not the kind of excitement that an Ali or Tyson gave us. One isn’t better than the other, but Larry’s jab worked well for him. So well that he held some variation of the heavyweight championship for 7 years. Among his victories, he defeated Ken Norton, Muhammad Ali, Ernie Shavers, Mike Weaver, Gerry Cooney, Tim Witherspoon, Carl Williams, and Marvis Frazier. He was at 48-0 before the mafia outright robbed him he fell short of tying Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record in his match with Leon Spinks in 1985. Everyone in Easton will tell you “they know” Larry, that’s everybody but me. I actually have met him plenty of times, but that’s different from knowing someone. I do know Larry Jr., and he’s an absolutely great dude (go check out his new cigar bar, Legends, which is opening in downtown Easton). So I know Mr. and Mrs. Holmes did a great job at that.
Is Larry the greatest athlete to ever come out of the Lehigh Valley? He might be. Mario Andretti is the only man to ever win the Indy 500, Daytona 500, and Formula One Championship though, so there’s an argument that he is also a top ten, or even top five athlete of all-time in his sport. Larry has competition to just be the greatest athlete ever to come out of Easton though- Bobby Weaver won the Olympic Gold Medal in Los Angeles in 1984 in freestyle wrestling. It would be really hard to argue against any of them as the best ever. There are competitors though.
Joe Kovacs of Bethlehem Catholic is a three time Olympic Silver Medalist in the Shot Put, and has won two World Championships. Stan Dziedzic of Allen won an Olympic Bronze Medal in Wrestling at the 1976 Olympics, to go with his three NCAA Division II and one Division I championship. Andre Reed of Dieruff is in the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame and started in FOUR Super Bowls. Saquon Barkley obviously won last year’s Super Bowl with the Eagles and was named Offensive Player of the Year. His fellow Whitehall Zephyrs Matt Millen and Dan Koppen won four and two Super Bowls in their NFL careers. Jim Ringo of Phillipsburg won Super Bowl I and another championship on his way to making both the Packers and Eagles Hall-of-Fame. Ned Bolcar of Phillipsburg won an NCAA Championship for Notre Dame’s 1988 team and played in the NFL. Chuck “Concrete” Charlie of Liberty High School was a two way menace for the Eagles and won two championships. Kristen Maloney was an Olympic Bronze Medal winning gymnast out of Pen Argyl. Sandy Koufax is one of the greatest pitchers of all time and resides in the Center Valley area. Darian Cruz wrestled in the 2024 Olympics and finished 5th. Marty Nothstein, long before politics, won an Olympic Silver (’96 Atlanta) and Gold (2000 Sydney) in track cycling. Meredith Sholder of Emmaus played on the 2024 U.S. Olympic Field Hockey team. Curt Simmons from Whitehall pitched on the 1950 NL Champion Phillies and made three All-Star Games. Brian Schneider of Northampton had a long MLB career with the Expos, Nationals, Mets, and Phillies. Anthony Recker of Catasauqua was a catcher for the A’s, Cubs, and Mets. Matt McBride from Liberty appeared for the A’s and Rockies. Aaron Gray of Emmaus had a decent run in the NBA, mostly as a member of the Chicago Bulls. You can’t forget defending Super Bowl Champion Jahan Dotson of Nazareth. Cindy Werley of Emmaus was on the 1996 Olympic Field Hockey Team. Kevin and Kyzir White of Emmaus have had notable NFL careers, with Kyzir playing for the Eagles 2022 Super Bowl team. Tyrese Martin of Allen is on the Brooklyn Nets right now. Damn, this list got long.
One would be really hard pressed to make a Mount Rushmore of Lehigh Valley sports without Larry Holmes, Mario Andretti, Chuck Badnarik, and Bobby Weaver. You could certainly argue for Matt Millen, Andre Reed, Dan Koppen, Saquon Barkley, Marty Nothstein, and Jim Ringo, and I won’t say you’re wrong. Either way, the Easton Assassin has to be on any list, and I hope he had a great birthday.
It will all be over tomorrow, folks. To a large extent, we sort of know what’s happening already. There are about 40,210 highly likely Election Day voters. The Republicans hold a substantial lead amongst them of 6,111 votes. There are 3,417 independent and third party voters who are likely to show up tomorrow. Two years ago, 47,015 people voted on Election Day. Tara Zrinski got 18,628 votes and lost them by a little bit over 7,500. I am predicting 48,392 Election Day voters tomorrow. Republicans will have a 6,729 vote advantage over Democrats. There will be just over 5,000 independent and third party voters. Tom Giovanni and the Republican ticket will win Election Day by a hair under 8,000. If you’re watching for anything, it’s whether we cross 49 or 50 thousand Election Day votes, and whether his margin is more than 8,000.
Two years ago, 25,421 people voted by mail. Democrats crushed the Republicans with these voters. Zrinski won this group by 13,331 and actually did a little worse than the statewide court numbers. Democratic numbers are a little down from that height though. 16,175 Democrats have returned their ballots, compared to 6,034 Republicans. That’s an edge of 10,141. There are 2,500 independent and third party votes in. Election Day independents probably break Republican and vote by mail independents tend to break Democratic. For argument’s sake, if that’s the case here, Democrats probably come out 10,600 votes up, and Zrinski wins by a little under 3,000 votes. Of course, that’s assuming more votes don’t come in. We’re at 24,709 in already, so it’s probably a bit crazy to think most of the remaining ballots come in. There are 9,150 of them still out there though, and Democrats hold an advantage of 3,020 amongst their registration. Republicans are definitely doing a bit better than 2023 amongst vote by mail voters, but they’d still be happy if less of these votes came in.
Tom Giovanni is probably not going to win tomorrow. The numbers are better for him than they were for John Cusick against Zrinski in 2023 though. Zrinski won the Controller race by 5,775 that year. She’s only going to get to that number if like 3 or 4 thousand more vote by mail ballots come in, or she crushes him with independents. As of right now, I expect turnout to be slightly higher than 2023, something in the neighborhood of 74,000, and I expect Zrinski to win by about 2,600 votes, which is just shy of 4%. So she gets about 51% and he gets about 47%. Is there a path for Giovanni though? Yes. First, I think he has to hope that less than 1,500 more vote by mail ballots come in. Second, he needs to crush it with Election Day independent voters and win the independent voters who voted by mail. Then he’ll need at least some portion of Democrats to come over and vote for him, beyond the usual. That’s a lot, and he and his party did not run a campaign that was advantageous for that. As usual, they followed the conventional wisdom that most of their voters will vote on Election Day. That’s great and all, but it isn’t worth a cup of coffee at Wawa if that’s not enough voters to win. They also messaged entirely at their base with a Charlie Kirk mailer, and weirdly put out signs asking “Where’s the money Lamont?,” as if a.) anyone knows what that means, b.) they actually wanted to drag the guy that crushed them the last two Executive races into the race, and c.) he was their opponent. The strategy was bizarre and made no sense. I think it will probably cost them a relatively close Executive race, a very close judge race, and any shot at the majority on County Council (they need to win 4 seats tomorrow). I think Democrats Dave Holland and Lori Vargo Heffner and Republican Sam Elias will win seats tomorrow night. I would predict the Democrats to win four for sure, but Democrats drop off much faster as we go down the ballot. I think Theresa Fadem and Jason Boulette will be in a very close race with Republicans John Goffredo and John Brown. My guess is Fadem and Goffredo hang on. For Zrinski to be able to govern, she will need two Democrats besides Vargo Heffner to win, so she needs Holland, Fadem, and Boulette to have good nights. If it’s a good night for Republicans and Giovanni over performs, they absolutely could get Elias, Goffredo, and Brown through. I just don’t think I see them getting four seats unless Giovanni wins.
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.
I’ve been around long enough to remember the Bush Republican Party. It was an awful institution, an institution that ruined our standing in the world with their post-9/11 foreign policy, created permanent deficits with their tax cuts, wars, and unfunded mandates, wrecked public education, put the architects of repealing Roe v. Wade on the bench, ran a Presidential campaign in 2004 based on gay baiting and homophobia, weakened environmental laws, and deregulated housing and Wall Street to the point of an economic collapse in 2008. In short, the reason I am a Democrat today is that the Bush Republican Party was an incredibly damaging group of people and was full of completely repugnant people, from Dennis Hastert to Dick Cheney. We should not opine the moral superiority of “those good ole’ days.” There was nothing good about them.
What followed the Bush Republican Party was not an improvement. Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and the rise of people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul was not some return of moral leadership to the Party of Lincoln. Those folks gave rise to Trumpism, and Trump has been the revolution. Our government is largely no longer functional, and that’s what many folks who supported him want. “Norms” are no longer normal, there is no discussion of common ground. The current pathway is simply a regression to the desired conservative mean, a natural outcome of the algorithm billionaires and conservative culture warriors wanted. The destruction of this moment cannot be understated.
The problem of course is that as dumb as Trump truly is, there was a decent argument that a 20th century government and political culture was no longer working for America. The large, bulky government we had put together after World War II, and it’s technocratic wonkiness, had become a hinderance to the desires of the public. Our society was not, and by the way is still not, meeting our needs.
I won’t draw a comparison between the party of Obama/Clinton/Biden and the Bush GOP, because let’s be honest, they gave us things like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and an infrastructure bill. If you want to argue they didn’t go far enough, fine, but they were good things. However, the Democratic Party had become the defenders of systems and institutions that were not, and are not, popular. We were arguing the economy was fine because of market growth and job numbers, while housing and costs in general were rising. We were arguing that Israel was right to attack Hamas, because they were, but were giving ourselves no room to criticize Netanyahu’s incompetence and total disinterest in getting to a sustainable outcome, even as he criticized and attacked us. We were right to bail out Wall Street, the auto industry, and the health care industry after 2008, but also not only didn’t make them pay for their bad choices, we sort of got stuck defending why America “needed” them. Basically, we got stuck keeping our systems working, because it was the best thing for society, and then also got stuck defending the institutions on which we had always been the only check. We started to look like the kids serving as hall monitors in high school, the wet blankets.
The correct response to this is not to start yielding to anti-semitism and white men with Nazi tattoos, that much I know. Globalizing the Intifada is still a very, very bad idea, even if you think Netanyahu is an abject criminal. Sure, Democrats should never have conceded to the data nerds and embraced a “base only” approach to politics, but the answer to that is not to embrace the very worst human beings one can find. The 2010 Republican Party conceded power to the Tea Party, and within a few years they were embracing Pizza Gate, Charlottesville, chem trail theorists, and “white replacement theory.” So much for Milton Friedman economics and “real politic” foreign policy. They were overrun with an unmanageable caucus in both houses of Congress and a Presidential candidate who was completely self motivated and transactional. What could go wrong? Well, everything. And now it’s the Democrats turn. We are on the verge of accepting anti-semitism, grifters, and crackpot conspiracy theorists. They are defending political violence against Jews. And before you say, it’s just one of them, no it’s the whole Alt-Left movement. As DSA calls murder okay, they organize for Mamdani. That would be Zohran Mamdani, who last year was a part of the uncommitted movement over, yes, Gaza. Up on stage at their DSA rally he had AOC, a proponent of the “defund the police” movement. Seriously. She didn’t just want changes to policing, she wanted it defunded. She meant it too. And then there was Bernie up there with them. Bernie, who ran and lost for President twice, the second time much worse, who never misses a chance to attack Democrats. Not on stage with them was Bernie’s heart throb in Maine, Graham Platner, a loud progressive who also thinks the Democratic Party sucks, and also has Nazi tattoos. Of course, the Alt-Left loves him and thinks they “might have found our Trump.” They also didn’t bring their old buddy John Fetterman around, because he’s sort of problematic right now, but he was Mamdani and Platner before they were.
There are Democratic leaders, from Martin Heinrich to Chris Murphy, maybe to even Hakeem Jeffries and Kathy Hochul, ready to concede to these folks. They are ready to concede the Democratic Party to self avowed socialists, conspiracy theories, and nuts. It’s about to happen here in the Lehigh Valley too. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks in the 7th Congressional district primary. Just like he did for Fetterman. That would be Crooksy who stiffed his mother-in-law, but lives in a state of denial that people won’t care about stealing $55k, defending political violence, sharing racist memes, and being a religious radical. Of course Bernie is for this, he was for Fetterman too. And like Bernie and Fetterman, Crooksy lectures the Democrats about “not supporting the working class,” which for Crooksy just means they let the Black lady talk to Black people, which he definitely hates. Sadly, it sounds like Governor Shapiro is going to join the PA Dems in conceding the Democratic Party to the most vile, terrible elements of the left for political expediency. This is no profile in courage moment. Our leaders are letting us down. They are allowing anti-semites, conspiracy theorists, and socialists to be our future. This is our Tea Party Moment. We are failing it.
The question hit like a ton of bricks. The person asking me it was one of several people that have been accused of leaking me stuff to put on here. Like usual, the accusations were wrong. There are some people upset about things I find out and print here, things like Governor Shapiro getting ready to endorse the man known as Crooksy or that the State Democratic Party is helping Crooksy’s campaign. The thing is, they don’t deny these things, because they’re true. They just don’t want them talked about. So they want to know who is leaking me the info. They want to stop the leaks. Never mind that they are getting ready to nominate a deadbeat. That’s not the problem for them. They’re ok with that. They’re living in denial.
Look, I’m a political dinosaur at this point. I’ve been around campaigns long enough to remember who managed the Governor’s first campaign and what happened to them. It shouldn’t be a shock that there are a few people who will tell me what the state party is doing, or what the governor is doing, or what Crooksy shot his mouth off about in a room of people he thinks won’t tell. I have friends in this business who literally came to see me at the hospital, but I also have tons of acquaintances, and I know the difference. They’d stick a knife in me if convenient. Apparently the folks around Crooksy and Harrisburg don’t think that happens to them. They don’t get that the calls come from within their own house.
None of this really matters though. The truth is, all I write about Crooksy, or Crosswell, or anyone else, is quite literally things that are verifiable facts. Crosswell doesn’t deny that he was a Republican registrant and primary voter in at least four separate states and districts, or that he worked at a union busting firm, he just claims somehow that he “wasn’t partisan” while he was voting in Trump’s elections, even as he consciously re-registered as a Republican and voted in Republican primaries that featured Trump. Crooksy doesn’t deny that he failed to pay his mother-in-law back one cent of the $55k they had loaned him and his ex-wife for over 15 years, or that he lost twice in court, he just tries to deflect by saying it only was an issue because of a messy divorce. He doesn’t even bother to make up a spin for his racist social media posts or his lax attitude on political violence, or for that matter his belief in school prayer. He knows he posted this stuff. He just hopes you don’t care.
Look, whether it’s a Nazi tattoo in Maine, a Hamas supporter in New York City, a Republican union-buster from Pottsville, or a deadbeat right-winger from Nazareth, I am not going to be okay with crooks, lunatics, liars, and terrible people taking over the Democratic Party in some vain hope of “taking back” young male voters. This stuff is unacceptable. I get that there are staff people in the Harrisburg establishment who don’t want people to get to read about these people and what they did. They hope you never learn about it. I’m not going to oblige them. I’m going to make sure it’s out there for everyone. There are downsides to this, of course. I know that several staff members from Congressman Mackenzie, and many other Republicans also read my blog, and they will use this stuff against these folks. So be it. These are not good people.
I think it goes without saying, voters get to make the last call. If voters don’t care that Crooksy is untrustworthy, if they don’t care about the things he did, so be it. Same for Crosswell. If Democratic Primary voters in Maine don’t care that a self-professed history buff claims he didn’t know he had a Nazi tattoo, when he clearly did, then so be it. As long as they know, because the truth is that they will find out, either from us, or from the other side. You can’t hide it as a candidate.
Last year in Easton, State Representative Bob Freeman beat City Councilwoman Taiba Sultana by such a wide margin that if it were any worse, he’d be winning by numbers on par with Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin, and other famous autocratic leaders. For full disclosure, I did work on his campaign, but also, I am not why he won. Bob won by so much because virtually everyone in Easton likes him, and for that matter in the other communities he represents. He’s been effective at legislating, and more importantly he has not one time in his career embarrassed his community. He’s a decent human being in a time when politics lack that.
Sultana’s campaign wasn’t going to be successful, but she probably didn’t help herself making every Easton City Council meeting a referendum on Gaza. Look, neither the State Representative or Easton City Council are for the destruction and death happening in Gaza. It’s a complicated, ugly issue, but they’re not the issue. I guess aiming at the wrong culprit is still her MO though. The Councilwoman wanted to put forward an ordinance protecting undocumented immigrants in Easton. For a variety of reasons, Easton really has no part in enforcing immigration. It’s out of their jurisdiction and they don’t allow their police to really be involved. It’s simply not an issue the Easton City Council can legally do much about.
So instead of the ordinance, the council decided to bring forth Councilman Ruggles’ 2017 resolution supporting the immigrant community in Easton, with additions based on Sultana’s proposal. You know what, I support that. A resolution stating the opinion of the city government, in particular on people being taken into custody without a warrant or any due process, is a good thing. The councilwoman’s proposed additions to the resolution dealt with what should be done with people at the border, which is somewhat of a different question, but even there I’m not saying they couldn’t say that. Of course, once Sultana started squaring off with Councilman Frank Pintabone about the language in the resolution, things went totally off the rails. Pintabone suggested her language watered down the message of the resolution. Then things went nuts:
Pintabone responded by stating the resolution does not offer protection of the federal government even if it calls out issues between the city and federal officials.
Sultana eventually said Pintabone was making such points because “undocumented immigrants cannot vote for you.”
Pintabone described Sultana’s commentary as “great talking points for your next campaign.”
She later said, “you want to make sure you have the vote of all the racists, all the white people.”
Huh? All the white people? all the racists? What in the actual blue hell is that? Yes, there are plenty of white racists in this world. No, not every white person is racist. This is probably more true in Easton than most other places. Easton is a mixed racial community. There are significant White, Black, and Latino populations in the city. There is a history of Asians in the community and particularly a vibrant Lebanese history in the city. Easton’s schools, even in the townships, are pretty well integrated. I know damn well there are some racists in the community. Saying all the white people are racist is insane.
Last I checked, Easton was just over 50% white (in the city, the surrounding townships are whiter). If you think that a group of people that large in your community are sworn racists, why in the hell do you want to represent them? Even better question yet, if you think the majority population in your community are all racists, and you’re the one standing against racism, how do you think you’re actually going to win? I have good friends in the NAACP and other community groups that are like minded, and not one of them would say all the white people in the community are racists. They might say we can do more to fight racism, but they would never make such a blanket statement as this. It’s reckless and it’s dumb politics. It kind of explains why just about 4 out of every 5 voters in the State House race didn’t vote for her. This kind of naked identity based attack is dying a painful death in American politics, and that’s a good thing. Easton deserves better than this.
Just based on his schedule and endorsements, it’s pretty obvious that ancient fossil/dinosaur/cranky old man Bernie Sanders either wants to run for President in 2028 or try to be the king maker for who Democrats nominate for President. Bernie is 84 years old and will be 87 in 2028. He is, in short, older than Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and probably a bunch of other national political figures who are very old, or in most cases, long retired. Also, all of them were at least able to win a nomination to run for President, something Sanders failed at twice, and in fact did far worse in his second attempt at. Bernie is a delusional nut, and not just for his archaic left views on policy. People don’t vote for the guy. He’s not as likable as he thinks he is, thanks to the internet. His record of king making? Tulsi Gabbard, John Fetterman, some failed pro-life Mayoral candidate in Omaha, and of course, that lady Shontel Brown blew out in Cleveland (“HELLO SOMEBODY,” Nina Turner!). This guy is a delusional crackpot that Democrats should be trying to stuff back in the school locker that the DNC braintrusts let him out of in 2016. He’s yesterday’s loser.
Here’s the thing though, Bernie doesn’t just have delusions for himself, he creates delusions for others. Take Graham Platner in the Maine Senate race. The latest “white savior” from the far left to run for office is certain he can win a U.S. Senate seat away from Susan Collins. Never mind that he never has won anything, he’s certain he’s the LeBron James of Democratic politics. He’s so certain that he’ll tell you that his past Reddit posts questioning why Black people don’t tip, downplaying sexual assault, and using homophobic slurs don’t matter. You know, he was just trying to get a rise out of people. Now he’s re-shuffling his campaign and making people sign NDA’s so you don’t hear any more about it. He figures people will just forget about it and elect their savior, who is of course, him. For a brief moment yesterday morning he got a poll that showed that primary voters were willing to excuse the early stuff. That’s sick, vile, and disgusting, and I hope is just a matter of Maine voters not knowing enough about it yet. I’m sure we will soon find out that the general electorate is not as forgiving. I guess it was the endorsement from a white supremacist might do it. Or maybe, and just hear me out here for a second, it was having a Nazi tattoo that he got on a drunken night in Croatia when he was 37 will kill his candidacy.
The whole entire premise of his campaign is dumb to begin with though. Sara Gideon didn’t lose to Collins because she was some super moderate. The attack at the end that Collins team ran with was that Gideon wanted to defund police. Of course though, Bernie Sanders, surprisingly Senator Martin Heinrich, and basically all the Democratic Socialist types are sticking up for Graham and saying he’s a great candidate. They think this stuff will go away, or voters just won’t care. Assuming voters in Maine don’t mind that he’s further left than Gideon, who they rejected in 2020, they probably will mind that Platner is a piece of shit human being. Collins and her backers will remind them of it, over and over again. His defense is basically that he was a drunken man child. I’m sure people will be cool with a Neo-Nazi Senator.
This is the kind of judgment Bernie Sanders shows over and over again though. He endorses delusional deadbeats in primaries who run on his populist BS. Here in the 7th District of Pennsylvania, that’s his guy, Bob “Crooksy” Brooks. Crooksy took $55,000 from his mother-in-law and didn’t pay it back He went to court, and lost, then lost his appeal too. His excuse is that it was all just part of a messy divorce. That’s one helluva long divorce- it was basically the entire marriage! Crooksy took the money in 2004, paid none back by 2008 and therefore signed a promissory note to pay the money back, then proceeded to pay back not one dime for ten more years before the lady filed suit against him. A full two more years went by before the case went to court, he still didn’t pay any money back, then he appealed the case on the grounds that the promissory note was no longer valid, so he didn’t need to pay. Seriously. This dude stiffed his mother-in-law and thinks voters in the most swing district are going to trust him as some sort of ridiculous “every man” figure.
Look, if we set aside for a minute that he became the President of the Fire Fighters union by pushing out his predecessor allegedly in dubious ways, or that the guy is a racist, a gun nut and militant religious wacko, and maybe the only statewide union President too lazy to go to Labor Day events, I think most normal voters understand that stiffing your mother-in-law for over 15 years brings up some serious issues in your trustworthiness. Explaining his laissez-faire views on political violence can be hard to get across to voters. Taking money, not paying it back, and then lying about it is much easier. In his delusional mind though, he thinks he’s Congressional material. Ryan Mackenzie will make him the poster-child for elder abuse by the end of this race, fair or not. He’s easily the worst candidate in this field. But he’s lecturing Democrats about supporting working people. Give me a break.
Maybe I’m over thinking it though. Maybe the sign came on the first day of the campaign- the endorsement from Bernie Sanders. The same Bernie Sanders who stood on stage with Tulsi Gabbard and told us she’s great. The same Bernie Sanders who rallied voters for John Fetterman, who now wants to sell out our health care. The same Bernie Sanders defending the guy with the Nazi tattoo in Maine. The same Bernie Sanders who is fine with stiffing your mother-in-law in the Lehigh Valley.
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.
Apocalypse Vibes 