{"id":187130,"date":"2026-05-08T12:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T12:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/187130\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T12:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T12:29:07","slug":"who-is-behind-new-attack-ad-in-lehigh-valley-race-for-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/187130\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is behind new attack ad in Lehigh Valley race for Congress?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new attack ad airing in the Lehigh Valley accuses Democratic candidates for Congress Bob Brooks and Ryan Crosswell<\/a> of secretly being aligned with Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.<\/p>\n

The ad, which is funded by an anonymous group, urges viewers to vote for Lamont G. McClure, the former Northampton County executive, calling him a \u201cprogressive Democrat\u201d who would stand up to Trump. McClure\u2019s campaign is not involved in the ad, and he denounced its message in an interview with The Morning Call.<\/p>\n

McClure, Brooks, Crosswell and former PPL executive Carol Obando-Derstine are running in the May 19 primary for the Democratic nomination to face incumbent Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in what\u2019s expected to be a highly competitive election in November.<\/p>\n

The ad is funded by a political action committee called \u201cLead Left PAC.\u201d According to its website, the PAC \u201cstands against MAGA extremists who will infect our country with Donald Trump\u2019s agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Federal Election Commission website<\/a>, Lead Left PAC filed its official paperwork yesterday through treasurer Tammie Cannon in Tallahassee, Florida.<\/p>\n

No information about Lead Left PAC\u2019s spending and donors is currently available. Federal deadlines will not require the group to disclose any donor information until after the election, leaving local Democrats in the dark about who is trying to influence their vote.<\/p>\n

How Democrat Bob Brooks consolidated support in his primary run for Congress \u2014 and why some in his party are angry about it<\/a><\/p>\n

Punchbowl News<\/a>, a D.C.-based politics news outlet, is reporting that metadata on the Lead Left PAC website includes a link to WinRed, which is a Republican political fundraising platform. Specifically, it leads to a donation page for the organization \u201cStanding Tall Action,\u201d which, according to its website, stands for \u201cAmerica first\u201d principles and includes quotes from Trump and Vice President JD Vance.<\/p>\n

Lead Left PAC is a 501(c)4 nonprofit, which are sometimes referred to as \u201cdark money\u201d groups because they are not required to disclose their donors but can contribute money toward electioneering efforts. The same PAC has also spent money attempting to tie John Cavanaugh, a Democrat running in a competitive primary in a Nebraska swing district, to Trump, according to Punchbowl News.<\/p>\n

The three candidates named in the ad airing in the Lehigh Valley denounced it..<\/p>\n

\u201cI am running my own campaign, we were doing just fine on our own, we are going to win without this outside help, and it\u2019s one of the reasons why I have said that Citizens United needs to be overturned by constitutional amendment,\u201d McClure said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Citizens United is a 2010 Supreme Court decision which paved the way for unlimited amounts of money to be raised and spent on campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans are targeting me because I\u2019m the candidate they fear the most. They don\u2019t want to face me in November because they know this firefighter will smoke Ryan Mackenzie, flip this seat, and stop Donald Trump\u2019s cruel agenda,\u201d Brooks said in a written statement. \u201cThis is exactly what\u2019s wrong with our broken and corrupt political system. A MAGA super PAC can parachute in at the final hour and spend millions of dollars in Republican dark money to spread lies about me and my record of service to the Lehigh Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message this ad is trying to send is total nonsense,\u201d said Crosswell\u2019s campaign manager Nick Mattes. \u201cThe message it actually delivers is that Republicans are scared of Ryan Crosswell. They should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

A news release from Crosswell\u2019s campaign notes that, while the ad accuses Crosswell of helping Trump while he was a federal prosecutor, it uses footage of Crosswell testifying against alleged corruption in Trump\u2019s Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new attack ad airing in the Lehigh Valley accuses Democratic candidates for Congress Bob Brooks and Ryan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,836,433,182,139,434,28,50,432],"class_list":["post-187130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-election","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-northampton-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187130","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=187130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}