{"id":25446,"date":"2025-11-05T11:39:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/25446\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:39:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:39:06","slug":"allentown-mayor-wins-second-term-four-council-members-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/25446\/","title":{"rendered":"Allentown mayor wins second term, four council members confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Mayor Matt Tuerk signaled his plans to get “right back to work” after easily claiming victory in his bid for re-election Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Tuerk again saw off a challenge from Councilman Ed Zucal, whom he handily beat in the Democratic primary in May.<\/p>\n

Zucal ran on the Republican side of the ballot<\/a> after getting enough GOP write-in votes, but never officially changed parties.<\/p>\n

The challenger appears to have performed better this time around, after picking up 20% of votes in the May 20 Democratic primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllentown showed up today. … And my promise to you, Allentown: I’m going to keep showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Matt Tuerk after winning re-election<\/p>\n

Tuerk got almost 5,000 primary votes, while Zucal picked up about 1,200; the mayor called his May 20 primary win \u201ca clear message\u201d<\/a> that voters want him to continue leading the city.<\/p>\n

Tuerk got just over 12,000 votes out of 16,645 counted by 10:15 p.m. Tuesday, good for a lead of 72%-28%, according to unofficial results.<\/p>\n

‘Still a ton of work to do’<\/p>\n

Speaking Tuesday night from Simpatico, Tuerk said he was \u201ccompletely blown away\u201d by \u201creally impressive\u201d voter turnout in Allentown and across the Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllentown showed up today,\u201d Tuerk told dozens at the Center City restaurant. <\/p>\n

\u201cAllentown residents know how to show up, and they showed up today in a big way. And my promise to you, Allentown: I’m going to keep showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lehigh County’s website displaying unofficial election results showed a turnout of about 38% with all 161 partially reporting vote tallies. The county registered a turnout of 16.4% in May\u2019s Democratic and Republican primaries.<\/p>\n

The mayor highlighted investments in city infrastructure and parks, lower crime rates and continued development among the \u201cton of progress\u201d made during his first term.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve done a lot over four years,” he said. “It’s been really remarkable progress. [When] you walk down Hamilton Street, it’s not the same Hamilton Street that you saw four years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there’s still a ton of work to do. We still have strong investments to make in housing. We have to continue to create economic opportunity for people to get ahead. <\/p>\n

“We have to keep working to connect people to our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuerk thanked Zucal for running a \u201cmuch more gentlemanly\u201d campaign since his first loss. The mayor in May accused the two-term councilman of \u201cMAGA-style politics\u201d after he distributed inflammatory mailers in the final weeks of the primary.<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com could not immediately reach Zucal on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

‘A new era for Allentown’<\/p>\n

Voters on Tuesday also elected four members to Allentown City Council.<\/p>\n

Two incumbents \u2014 Cynthia Mota and Natalie Santos \u2014 won new terms, while newcomers Jeremy Binder and Cristian Pungo also claimed seats after confirming their Democratic primary wins.<\/p>\n

Binder received the second-most votes in May, while Pungo topped Council President Daryl Hendricks by 25 votes for the fourth and final nomination. <\/p>\n

Zucal did not seek re-election as he ran for mayor.<\/p>\n

The new year will bring the start of Mota\u2019s fourth term and Santos\u2019 second on council. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m an immigrant. [My victory] means a lot, especially now, with all the difficulties immigrants are having.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cynthia Mota, Allentown City Council<\/p>\n

Santos was the youngest person ever elected to the office in 2021, beating the mark set in 2019 by Josh Siegel, who was elected Lehigh County executive on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Mota, who moved from the Dominican Republic to Allentown as a child, called her fourth successful election a win for immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m an immigrant,” she said. “[My victory] means a lot, especially now, with all the difficulties immigrants are having.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cynthia<\/p>\n

Jason Addy<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n

Cynthia Mota declares victory in her bid for a fourth term on Allentown City Council on Tuesday, Nov. 4, during her Election Night watch at El Tipico in South Allentown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s an honor; it’s an honor to serve my city,\u201d she said at her party at El Tipico, a Dominican restaurant in South Allentown. \u201cI love my city. There’s nothing I won’t do for my city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pungo, a construction manager at Alvin H. Butz Inc., called his election alongside Binder and Siegel the start of \u201ca new era for Allentown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hendricks and Zucal will take two decades of combined experience with them when they vacate their seats in the new year.<\/p>\n

Pungo, 28, said he sees that \u201cchanging of the guard\u201d as \u201can opportunity for new voices and for our community to have a seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pungo said he\u2019s long felt a \u201cdisconnect\u201d between Allentown officials and Center City, where he grew up, and wants to work toward “bridging that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com could not immediately reach Jeremy Binder or Natalie Santos on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Mayor Matt Tuerk signaled his plans to get “right back to work” after easily claiming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,16750,2748,3299,16751,16752,121,2454,16753,8888,120,3000,2459],"class_list":{"0":"post-25446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-2025-election-results","10":"tag-allentown-city-council","11":"tag-allentown-election","12":"tag-allentown-election-results","13":"tag-allentown-general-election-results","14":"tag-allentown-headlines","15":"tag-allentown-mayor","16":"tag-allentown-mayor-election-results","17":"tag-allentown-mayoral-race","18":"tag-allentown-news","19":"tag-ed-zucal","20":"tag-matt-tuerk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25446","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=25446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}