{"id":112472,"date":"2026-02-12T23:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/112472\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T23:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:07:08","slug":"republican-democratic-candidates-to-face-off-in-debate-for-pa-house-district-22-seat-lehigh-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/112472\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican, Democratic candidates to face off in debate for Pa. House District 22 seat | Lehigh County"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown is hosting a debate in a local race that could have state-wide implications.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This comes ahead of the special election on Feb. 24 for the state house seat vacated by current Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Right now, the Democrats hold a slim majority in the house with five seats up for grabs.<\/p>\n

Republican Robert Smith will face Democrat Ana Tiburcio in a special election for Pennsylvania’s 22nd District.\u00a0<\/p>\n

69 News caught up with both of them last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Former, current Allentown school board members vie for Pa. House District 22 seat<\/a><\/p>\n

Tiburcio was nominated in early January. She replaced Democratic candidate Julian Guridy, who had to withdraw over failing to meet residential requirements.<\/p>\n

The three-year Allentown school board member says if elected, she plans to focus on fair funding for schools and affordable housing.<\/p>\n

Smith is also not a stranger to public service. He served on Allentown’s school board for 16 years, and is a former member of city council.<\/p>\n

If he gets the seat, he wants to help working families, and improve the region’s roads and bridges.<\/p>\n

Democrats have held the slimmest of margins in the Pa. House where the balance of power has been razor thin.<\/p>\n

Republicans are hoping to change that in this heavily Democratic district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown is hosting a debate in a local race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,433,28,50],"class_list":["post-112472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehigh-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}