I got a text last night- “Josh IS endorsing Crooksy!!! Unbelievable.”
I won’t reveal the source of the text, but I guess if that’s the street word, it’s only like the twelfth time it’s been out there. If Crooksy thinks he has the Governor’s endorsement, by the 37th time or so he believes it, it has to be true.
If this is who the Governor wants, that’s nice, he won’t have a vote. My sense is he won’t spend on the guy’s behalf either, so who cares? We will see what the voters think of Crooksy’s record of backstabbing his way to the top of his union and deceiving his own family.
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.
Welp, we have updated finance numbers. If it wasn’t clear before, Ryan Crosswell is going to have the most campaign cash in the PA-7 race. The former Trump Administration Republican from DC won the money race by a lot. Since we know the DCCC values that over everything, obviously they will go looking for a sixth candidate now, right?
Anyway, here’s the numbers here in PA-7, followed by some other races of note.
Crooksy brought in $308,259.47. He has $243,615.75 on hand.
Crosswell brought in another $380,000. He has raised $701,108.08 in two reports. He has spent $266,743.94, leaving him with $433,791.14. That’s some burn rate.
Carol Obando-Derstine brought in $123,000. She has raised $317,006.02. She has spent $198,245.98, leaving her with $127,513.18. That’s a really astounding burn rate.
Lamont McClure’s report doesn’t seem to be fully up on the FEC site yet. He raised $229,000 according to press reports, which should put him at $458,386.04. He had burned through $135,267.89 in the first two reports, which should leave him at $323,118.15, minus whatever he spent this quarter. That was a fast burn rate, but we’ll see what he did this quarter.
Mark Pinsley’s report isn’t up on the FEC site yet. Press reports indicate he has raised $73,000. I have nothing to add to that.
Crosswell is raising serious cash, but spending just shy of 40% of it on staff and things that aren’t voter contact. He’s spent $266,743.94 and 10% of voters or less really know anything about him. I actually have to compliment Crooksy’s campaign, their burn rate is like half of Crosswell’s. They might catch him in money if there was more than two and a half quarters left at this rate, but they won’t. Carol’s number slowed and her burn rate is very high. McClure wrote himself most of what he raised this quarter, but the word is he stopped most of his spending so he may have a decent cash on hand number, but we’ll see about that. Pinsley’s number won’t do it. Crosswell and Crooksy have decent numbers here, but not Neary enough cash on hand with their low name ID’s. We’ll see here.
Now for context, some other numbers of note:
Paige Cognetti, the Mayor of Scranton, running in PA-8, announced she raised over $500,000 in under a month. She currently has no primary and probably won’t get one.She has $442,966.97 on hand. That district won’t be easy for her, but those are damn good numbers.
Janelle Stelson brought in $1,249,712.55. She has $969,643.79 on hand. The burn rate is a little higher, but damn!
Not enough numbers are out yet in PA-3, but so far the leaders in cash-on-hand are Sharif Street at $372,089.87 and David Oxman at $331,724.05. I’m really interested in Dr. Ala Stanford’s number to see if they hype is real.
Across the river in NJ-7, two candidates have crossed the $1 million mark raised. Rebecca Bennett still has $922,757.14 and Brian Varela has $805,278.44 left. Tina Shah has $481,396.28 on hand and Michael Roth has $290,302.11 left.
At this stage in the game, the most important number is really your cash on hand number. Sure, the DCCC and a bunch of DC types care about the total raised and quarter raise for their horse race purposes, but if you spend everything you raise, who cares? Campaigns are, in the end, about talking to voters. Right now, no one in PA-7 is really prepared to spend on the level they need.
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.
I got a call from a little birdy yesterday (funniest description ever) about local political goings on. There was a lot of news, on all kinds of different topics. One piece of news though was hilarious to me.
A certain member of County Council, running for re-election in 2025, apparently has told people *they* (no I’m not giving it away) plan to introduce legislation at Northampton County Council tonight to scrap the County Executive and return to the three person commissioner system that most counties use.
Say what?
Northampton County passed a Home Rule Charter that basically serves as it’s constitution. That charter created an elected Executive to run the day-to-day goings of the government. Many other counties don’t have that, and are sort of ran by a part-time Commissioner board, but are mostly run by unelected bureaucrats and people who “go along to get along” running departments. They raise taxes whenever they feel like it, and tend to do what is most popular in the government center. They don’t give a shit about public sentiment and they only answer to a bunch of commissioners who don’t really know how the government runs, because they’re not there. It’s an awful system and it isn’t responsive to the public.
I’m not going to name this council person, I like them personally and I hope that posting this ahead of time discourages their poor behavior. They are not doing this because they believe it’s a good idea, they’re doing this because they do not like the current County Executive and they do not like who they think will be the next County Executive. This is petty politics at it’s worst, the kind of mean girl shit that will make life worse for the public. If you don’t like Lamont McClure, Phil Armstrong, Tara Zrinski, or any other person who tries to be County Executive, you run a campaign against them. If people elect a County Executive twice or more, you should just tip your cap- they do represent what the public wants. Running around talking about being a check on elected power, when the voters can kick out that official if they want, is simply living in denial. Deciding you’re going to get rid of the office because you think the voters are going to vote for a third time the opposite of what you think they should is anti-democracy behavior of the worst type. I know this kind of bullshit behavior is par for the course in MAGA right now, but hopefully we’re not going to see this individual try this crap with the county government.
He’s got the black hoodie. He talks about “fighting” in Washington. He claims he’s a blue collar guy. He’s supported by Bernie Sanders. He has the same media consultants as Bernie, Fetterman, and Zohran. He’d like you to call him Brooksy. He stiffed his mother-in-law though, so on here we call him “Crooksy.”
Crooksy went on the Upper Lehigh Dems podcast/zoom to talk about his campaign. I needed to watch the leaves fall off trees in my neighborhood though, so I was too busy to listen to this guy lie about what a champion for the little guy he is. He is only the champion for some little guys, I think. I’m not going to listen to him lie when everything we need to know about him was litigated in public. A friend of the blog did watch though, a very skilled friend, and they had some thoughts.
Gotta tell ya, he is just not political material. I cannot imagine him going toe to toe with Rs in Congress or even some of his D colleagues.
Yep.
DC people pushed him and his head got big
Even more yep. He’s not at all of the caliber to do this. He’s not even someone who has shown us he can win anything. If we nominated this guy, one of two things will happen. It’s most likely that everything I received on him, and probably worse, is used against him, and Ryan Mackenzie wins another term. Under the unlikely scenario where this guy wins, he goes to Washington and is the next John Fetterman. Look, I was for Conor Lamb, so I don’t want to watch the rest of you get duped again. Send Crooksy off to the retirement he earned and give someone real a chance.
When I was a new voter in my college years, the Lehigh County Republican Party had begun their Fall. Democrats took back the County Executive’s job in 2005, a job the GOP has not won since, across three different elected Executives. The Lehigh County GOP had just face planted in 2001 in Allentown after a couple of terms in charge, then they lost to Ed Pawlowski and never got that job back either, three elected Mayors later. Lehigh County only has a small piece of Bethlehem, but they lose a lot there too. They managed to hang on to some visible power for years with Pat Toomey, Charlie Dent, and Pat Browne, but all of them have been sent off to the GOP inquisition for excommunication at the altar of Trump. As all of this went on, the Lehigh County GOP managed to lose all four at-large seats in the 2019 and 2023 elections and be relegated into a deep minority status on the Commissioner board, regardless of who the Democrats run and who funds the race. In short, the Lehigh County Republican Party has a recent record of success that looks like the New York Jets.
It’s safe to say the Lehigh County GOP has no “Broadway Joe” walking in to save them anytime soon though, so the Jets comparisons are fair. Instead they have Roger Maclean, a former Democrat that says he was always a Trump voter, and served as Ed Pawlowski’s hand picked city councilman and police chief, rubber stamping Pawlowski’s corrupt budgets. Maclean made a fool of himself in a recent debate, where he said he would fix the looming fiscal crisis in the county caused by the state’s overdue budget magically- “we’ll get our money.” Despite complaints to the contrary, Maclean was actually a terrible police chief too. Not only was there law breaking going on in city hall, Maclean had cops arrested in connection with rape, sex trafficking, and other horrific charges while he was chief in Allentown. Basically his cops were assaulting prostitutes and stealing money they recovered in drug busts, allegedly. Not only that, but crime fell immediately after Maclean left the job, both overall and in violent crimes. This guy is a dud.
Not only is the Lehigh County GOP running an ex-Pawlowski Democrat that was asleep on the job, they’re encouraging voters to “vote to honor Charlie” Kirk. Look, it’s awful that the guy was gunned down by a psychopath, but he has literally nothing to do with Lehigh County. I would venture a guess that over 90% of the folks who have discussed him in recent weeks never watched him. This has nothing to do with keeping Cedarbrook open, or how much to cooperate with ICE detainers, or running the children and youth departments, or open space preservation, or really anything within Lehigh County Government. It’s just a straight appeal to the most animal instincts of one portion of the electorate to be mad. Of course, in fairly blue Lehigh County, that won’t be enough for them, but they’re kind of just hoping more normal, moderate voters don’t notice this.
Unfortunately for them, that probably won’t happen.
I haven’t seen any full reports yet, but apparently we’re in for a bit of a surprise. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks definitely didn’t “rake in the cash,” only so far saying he beat $300k. That’s definitely not the $400k the DCCC rumor mill pushed. Despite touting his backing from a bunch of people from out of town and the non-endorsement that is supposed to be an endorsement from Governor Shapiro, Crooksy isn’t keeping pace with what his handlers are saying about him.
Meanwhile the word was that Ryan Crosswell was going to underwhelm. Well it doesn’t matter if it’s crushing Coors Light in DC or raising cash, he’s apparently keeping a serious pace. His campaign says they’ve raised $700k so far in two quarters. That would mean he raised $380k this past quarter. He probably beat Crooksy pretty badly.
Both of these guys have awful negatives and I think are very vulnerable. I think Crooksy probably has insurmountable negatives, no one likes a guy who stiffs his mother-in-law. Neither is a Democrat really, so I guess they both have primary problems. Crooksy was already $320k behind Union Busting Ryan to begin with, now it’s probably like $350k. Nobody knows who Crooksy is out there, it’s so bad that Mackenzie just left him out of his poll this week. Of course, earlier polling showed people didn’t really love Crooksy even when they were read a positive bio, so that’s probably for the best. Neither of these two are well known, but Crosswell will at least have money to try and cover up his bad behavior. If Crooksy keeps spending away his campaign money and missing his goals, he’ll be lucky to finish fourth in this primary. He should never have ran.
Ryan Crosswell’s manager says he’s feeling the love in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, but every other metric says otherwise. No elected in the district backs him. No union backs him. He had one donor from the district on his first report. Look, it’s hard moving to a new place and making new friends, I get it. Ryan’s struggling a bit.
I have to hand it to him though, he’s a man after my own heart. A couple weeks ago he ran off to Washington, D.C. for a few days. I like to do that when I’m depressed and want to feel completely hopeless about the future. He went hanging out at a bar called “Problem Child” over by Nats Park in the Navy Yard, also known as “RNC South” for the folks living there. You know what, I’m still right with him, that’s exactly where I go to feel better about all of my flaws, the Navy Yard is full of people who will make you feel better about yourself. So far, I’m with him. He also went out drinking beer, and well, I definitely like beer. More importantly than me liking beer, I think any good candidate who isn’t literally a recovering alcoholic should be able to drink beer amongst the people, it shows you can relate to the masses. So far, I’d say Ryan is kind of winning me over with all of this. But… Coors? I mean look bro, why don’t you just order a water? At least the water isn’t created by a notorious anti-union company, and it probably will get you more drunk. If I were being called a Republican and a union-buster, while running in a Democratic Primary in a district I’m not from, I’d probably put down the Coors for at least a bit so that people can’t make the point once again that I don’t care about labor rights. Hey though, we all make choices.
The photo and others (more for later, right?) were forwarded to me in an e-mail from a friend. They were dated 9/18 and 9/19, so a Thursday and Friday. I don’t mind that Crosswell likes beer, I do too. This just all screams the main points about him though- he’s running not to represent the Valley, but to get back home to DC, and he doesn’t give a damn about Democratic values, because he isn’t one.
There is the whole matter though of how Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is raising $300k in the first place though. In multiple calls with local party leaders this week, they all remarked how he’s late for events and leaves before they’re over. At least two of these leaders made the remark to me though, “he does have the state party helping him.” Really? I’m not shocked that he has the Bernie grifters helping him raise money, and for that matter the same people who created Fetterman. The state party though? That’s fascinating. This is a Democratic Primary, almost all of the other candidates are definitely Democrats. The state committee, the elected body that governs the staff at the party, has not voted to endorse in this or any other Congressional Primary in years. No county party in the district has voted to endorse Crooksy. In fact, no elected official in this district is backing Crooksy. So under what authority are the new chairman and his staff helping this guy? Seems crooked as hell.
By now though everyone knows what’s going on here. Brooksy has no shot in hell against Ryan Mackenzie, they’ll drown him just with the fact that he stiffed his mother-in-law for $55k, let alone all the other stupid things. That was a temporary distraction though. No one has shown they are the certain nominee in this district, and Crooksy is good for the good ole’ boys in Harrisburg’s bottom line. Senator Fetterman’s mouthpieces get paid. The out-of-district legislators endorsing him get to come back to the IAFF later and remind them how they supported their guy. The Governor can say to IAFF leadership in his gubernatorial run, and his future Presidential run, that he has been a loyal soldier with them. Here’s the thing- that’s all true. The folks at the DCCC got to push some work to consultants they like too. Absolutely none of this does anything to win this seat and give the Democrats a majority in PA-7. We actually run the risk of nominating a dude who will be way over his head and get mugged by the GOP money machine in November. It’s a political dead end, and worse yet, even if I’m wrong and he does win, the guy is just another John Fetterman. Wasn’t it enough for the good ole’ boys in Harrisburg to push one massive mistake on us all? Do we need to do that again?
Does one district decide everything? No. This one is as close as you can get though. Nominating this guy and either losing or getting a shit Congressman will hurt people who need government to work. No one benefits from that. We need to sink this guy, and sink him fast. He’s a nightmare in waiting.
Apocalypse Vibes 