ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Democrat Ana Tiburcio appeared late Tuesday to have locked up a special election for Pennsylvania’s 22nd state House District, a victory that would secure her party’s slim majority in the state House of Representatives for the rest of the year.
Tiburcio, an Allentown School Board director, and a small band of tired supporters breathed a sigh of relief when Lehigh County’s election office posted the first results of the night around 9 p.m.
The unofficial tally showed her leading Republican Robert E. Smith Jr. by nearly 600 votes with all of the mail-in ballots and 20 of the district’s 25 precincts reporting.
Early reports suggest the race saw extremely low turnout. As of 9:16 p.m. with most results in, just 1,300 residents requested a mail-in ballot, and multiple polling places across Allentown closed the day with fewer than 100 total voters.
The district represents the eastern half of Salisbury Township, Allentown’s East Allentown neighborhood and parts of the Center City neighborhood.
This breaking news report will be updated.