The Lehigh County Republican Committee has elected a new slate of leaders, including the committee’s first Latino chair and vice chair to serve concurrently.
George Rivera, a South Whitehall Township resident, managing partner at LongHorn Steakhouse and former candidate for the Parkland School Board in 2023 and 2025, will replace Joe Vichot as chair.
Jackie Rivera, a former candidate for Lehigh County commissioner, will serve as vice chair. She was previously the county Republican Committee secretary. The two are not related.
The new slate of leaders was chosen last Tuesday at a meeting of Lehigh County committee members, and have already assumed their new roles.
George Rivera told The Morning Call in an interview Tuesday that he switched his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican in 2020. He was inspired to do so by President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech in 2017.
“It was the first time I heard a sitting president say they want to make the country great for everyone,” he said. “I look at the Republican values of faith, the traditional family having prosperous neighborhoods, personal excellence. … Look at the Republican Party and other political parties and no one aligns with my personal values more than the conservative party, which is the Republicans.”
The new slate of leaders comes just three months before the consequential midterm elections, with several highly competitive state House and Senate races, as well as the Lehigh Valley’s 7th Congressional District.
George Rivera said the county will focus on electing Republicans in federal, state and local races. Throughout the county, all but the 133rd state House District has either Republican incumbents or challengers on the ballot, he said.
But Republicans face a challenging landscape in November — Trump’s approval rating is at a record low, according to polling compiled by The Economist, with just 35% approval and 60% disapproval. Although Trump is not on the ballot, midterm elections are traditionally seen by voters as a referendum on the president’s performance.
On the other hand, Latino voters in the Lehigh Valley are a key voting bloc that could hold an outsized influence on the outcome of the midterm elections, and Rivera hopes that his leadership will show prospective Latino voters that there is room in the Republican Party for them.
“Democrats frequently campaign on the importance of representation, but Republicans in Lehigh County are delivering it,” Rivera said. “Actions speak louder than slogans and leadership is opportunity. I hope people judge us not by stereotypes but by what we accomplish. We are building a Republican Party welcoming people from every profession, every neighborhood, every background.”
Lori McFarland, chair of the Lehigh County Democratic Committee, said she and the former two vice chairs, Robert Elbich and Carmen Bell, were reelected to continue in those positions in June. McFarland and Elbich are white and Bell is Black.
McFarland said that the Democratic Party is working to court Latino voters, and criticized Republican leaders for cuts to programs like SNAP that she argued have hurt Latinos in the Lehigh Valley.
“I don’t know that the Republican Party has much to offer the Latino community, and so our outreach will continue to include education on the policies that are affecting their lives every day,” McFarland said.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.