A heated Democratic primary in the heart of Allentown is exposing a divide between Democratic Party leaders and the party’s more progressive wing.
In a race that has major implications for Democrats’ power in Harrisburg, Democratic state Rep. Ana Tiburcio — seeking to hold onto her seat in the 22nd District that she won in a special election in February — faces a primary challenge from Ce-Ce Gerlach, an Allentown City Council member and former school board member.
Gerlach has picked up widespread support among left-leaning groups, including the Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists of America, as well as Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel, who represented the 22nd District until his resignation in December. Tiburcio, also a former Allentown School Board member, has support from the state and county Democratic Party, as well as other prominent elected officials including Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk and state Sen. Nick Miller, D-Lehigh.
More than 50% of registered voters in District 22, which includes Center City and East Allentown and a portion of Salisbury Township, are Democrats, so whoever wins the May 19 primary will be heavily favored to win in the general election. Robert Smith Jr., who lost to Tiburcio in the Feb. 24 special election, is running unopposed in the Republican primary, so he’s expected to face the Democratic primary winner in November.
All of the state House seats are up for election in November. Democrats are hoping to expand their razor-thin margin, while Republicans only need to pick up a few seats to take control of the chamber.
Gerlach was the first candidate to publicly announce her intention to run for Siegel’s seat, but she was passed over by a committee of local Democrats to run in the February special election. Candidate selections for special elections in Pennsylvania are generally via an internal process rather than a public election. Instead, party leaders selected Julian Guridy, a constituent services representative for Miller, as their nominee.
But Guridy was ineligible to run in Pennsylvania because of a residency requirement, so party officials scrambled to select Tiburcio — who had not originally applied for consideration as a candidate — just days before the state’s deadline to get on the special election ballot. Several local activists, including Gerlach, criticized the selection process as undemocratic, although Lehigh County Democratic Chair Lori McFarland defended it, saying the process is dictated by the party’s by-laws.
Gerlach said Tiburcio’s road to Harrisburg could be an advantage for her own campaign — she has positioned herself as an outsider “for the people,” and Tiburcio as a hand-picked candidate more aligned with the Democratic establishment than local residents.
“I am a candidate for and by the people,” Gerlach said in an interview with The Morning Call. “I was not selected by a small group of political insiders in a backroom deal. My campaign grew off of conversations on porches, under bridges, with teachers, with union workers. My campaign came from the people, not from the political machine.”
Tiburcio did not respond to phone calls or text messages requesting comment for this story. She has centered her campaign around bringing more state resources to Allentown, and since being elected, has introduced bills intended to support the craft beer industry and bolster hiring for teachers.
Gerlach has been an elected official in Allentown far longer than Tiburcio, serving on City Council since 2019 and on the school board between 2011 and 2019 — which likely bolsters her name recognition among primary voters. While on City Council, she has pushed for more protections for homeless residents, and successfully introduced a bill that limits Allentown’s cooperation with immigration enforcement and one that aims to help more minority-owned businesses secure city contracts.
But her tenure on Council has not been without controversy; in 2021, Gerlach was charged and entered a first-time offenders program for allegedly failing to report child abuse while employed at Valley Youth House. She has denied wrongdoing and said she was following procedures put in place by her employer. As part of a first-time offenders program, her record has since been expunged, and she addressed the incident in a interview posted to her official YouTube page.
Tiburcio also has had some legal issues; she faced truancy charges in 2016 due to her children’s missing substantial amounts of school. According to court documents, she pleaded guilty to a charge of violation of compulsory attendance. In a March interview, Tiburcio said her family went through a difficult period after the arrest of her oldest son, which is why they missed several days of school around that time. The difficult experience is part of what prompted her to run for Allentown School Board in 2023, she said.
A closer look at the candidates
Generally, incumbents have an advantage in an election. They typically have name recognition, more organized resources and more money to fund their campaigns.
However, Chris Borick, professor of American politics at Muhlenberg College, said Tiburcio lacks some of those advantages because of her last-minute campaign.
“Gerlach is not the incumbent, but for practical purposes, in many ways, she is more of an established name in Democratic politics in the area given her long tenure on City Council, and not only that, but she is a fairly prominent figure within Allentown politics,” Borick said. “And so she has, I think it is fair to say, a more established figure and that makes this race fascinating, because the traditional dynamics you would see with a challenger are a bit complicated because of who those candidates are.”
In addition to her endorsements, Gerlach has a policy platform that she has vowed to push for on Day 1 if elected. It includes advocating for a statewide law that would allow cities to enact rent control, banning companies from using algorithms to set grocery prices, expanding and fully funding the statewide whole home repair program and increasing taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents.
Gerlach’s endorsement from Siegel, the Lehigh County executive and Tiburcio’s predecessor in the House seat, also is significant, considering his high-profile place in Lehigh Valley politics. In an interview, Siegel said he opted to support Gerlach in the primary because he sees her as a more ambitious, experienced and grassroots candidate.
“She is grassroots, community organized, and has an ambitious view of what government is capable of and I share that spirit and mentality,” Siegel said. ”I think the Democratic Party needs to get back to its New Deal roots, needs to have an actual level of ambition again.”
He compared Gerlach with several other prominent progressives who are mounting challenges against establishment Democrats, including Chris Rabb, who is running with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement for an open congressional seat in Philadelphia against the more moderate state Sen. Sharif Street and pediatric surgeon Dr. Ala Stanford, and Sierra McNeil, a social worker who is challenging moderate Democrat Keith Harris for his state representative seat, also in Philadelphia.
But Siegel is an exception from the norm among local officials. Since Tiburcio is the incumbent, she has the support of the Pennsylvania House Democratic Committee, Lehigh County Democratic Committee, and other prominent Democrats, including Tuerk, Miller, and state Reps. Mike Schlossberg and Pete Schweyer.
Tuerk said he backs Tiburcio’s campaign because he has been “impressed” so far with her legislating in Harrisburg, including the two bills she has introduced and the announcement of several state grants benefiting the district. Further, he said, Tiburcio is Latino and speaks fluent Spanish, which he said is crucial in a district that is over 60% Latino.
“I have seen, from my time in the mayor’s office, that a person who can literally speak the language of the folks that you represent is incredibly important,” said Tuerk, Allentown’s first mayor of Hispanic descent and a fluent Spanish speaker. “You can’t outsource that to district staff, you need to be able to make the connection for a district like this. To have Latina, Spanish-speaking representation, that is incredibly important, so that is another reason why I am firmly behind Ana.”
However, Tiburcio has struggled to articulate specific legislative or policy proposals she would enact if elected, both during her campaign and a difficult performance in a February debate with Smith. During the debate she acknowledged that she “did not have all the answers,” but vowed to listen to her constituents on the issues important to them on the campaign trail and in elected office.
Tiburcio and her supporters also scrambled to fundraise in the wake of her 11th-hour campaign. Guridy, who had planned his run throughout 2025, raised over $46,000 in support of his candidacy before withdrawing from the race. Tiburcio could not tap into the funds he raised for his campaign, according to public records.
She raised just under $14,000 in support of her special election run as of March 6, according to campaign finance records, all of which came from a few political action committees. PACs run by Schlossberg and Schweyer each gave $1,000 to Tiburcio’s campaign, and the Greater Pennsylvania Carpenters gave $5,000.
She also received $56,000 in “in-kind” contributions from the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee, which spent $26,000 on digital media ad buys, $3,000 in staff salary and $14,500 in mailers, and the Progressive Turnout Victory Fund, which gave $3,000 to fund a “campaign fellow” who helped support Tiburcio’s special election campaign.
Gerlach’s campaign, on the other hand, has largely been fueled by smaller individual donors, according to her 2025 annual campaign finance report, the most recent report available. She received no PAC contributions that year, although she received $250 from Lehigh County Commissioner Jon Irons’ campaign committee.
She received $17,000 in individual donations — notable donors include Lehigh Valley Democratic Socialists of America’s Leo Atkinson, who gave $485 across several donations; Adrian Shanker, former director of the Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Center, who gave $100; and Corinne Goodwin, director of the PA Trans Equity Project, who gave $375.
Gerlach has also called for a public, issues-focused debate between Tiburcio, herself and Smith — something that Tiburcio has not yet agreed to, according to Gerlach. The three candidates participated in an informal “meet the candidates” event at Allentown’s Vogue Lounge in March.
Tiburcio, though she did not participate in interviews for this story, said in a statement to Armchair Lehigh Valley that she is open to a debate, but none had been scheduled as of press time.
In an interview, McFarland — who is backing Tiburcio in the race — declined to comment specifically on the divided support among some members of the party. She said the county party would support whoever wins the primary in the November general election.
“I think that the candidates need to run their campaigns, and whoever is victorious, the county party will be supporting that candidate,” McFarland said.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.