ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Democrat Ana Tiburcio appeared late Tuesday to have locked up a special election for Pennsylvania’s 22nd state House District, a victory that would secure her party’s slim majority in the state House of Representatives for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n
Tiburcio, an Allentown School Board member, and a small band of tired supporters breathed a sigh of relief when Lehigh County’s election office posted the first results of the night about 9 p.m.<\/p>\n
Initial reports showed she had a 600-vote lead over Republican Robert Smith. By the time the county completed its unofficial results by 9:52 p.m., she had secured two-third of all votes cast.<\/p>\n
The win capped a whirlwind seven weeks for Tiburcio, who went from not being in the running for the special election to becoming Lehigh County’s first Latina state representative.<\/p>\n
She had not sought the Democratic nomination to replace former state Rep. Josh Siegel, but was tapped to enter the special election at the 11th hour.<\/p>\n
Julian Guridy, the Lehigh County Democratic Committee’s first choice, had to pull out at the last minute due to residency issues.<\/p>\n
‘I am here for it’<\/p>\n
Speaking from her watch party at Simpatico in the city’s downtown, Tiburcio said she was committed to being a resource to one of the region’s most underprivileged communities.<\/p>\n
She acknowledged she is fresh to state politics, but said she was ready to put in the hard work to serve the region.<\/p>\n
“I’m not perfect as far as bills and policy, but guess what? My heart is into it.”<\/p>\n
State Rep.-elect Ana Tiburcio<\/p>\n
“This is a community that needs a lot of nurturing,” Tiburcio said. “There’s a lot of lack of knowledge, and I believe that I am here for it.<\/p>\n
“I’m not perfect as far as bills and policy, but guess what? My heart is into it.”<\/p>\n
Outside observers anticipated extremely low turnout. District 22’s population tends to be more migratory and show up to vote less when compared some neighboring district.<\/p>\n
The last contested District 22 race saw about 10,100 votes cast in 2022.<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s contest lived up to the billing, with just 6.9% of district’s 32,737 registered voters cast a ballot in the race, according to unofficial results.<\/p>\n
The Lehigh County website showed a total of only 14 votes cast in Allentown’s 10th Ward 3rd District.<\/p>\n
The district represents the eastern half of Salisbury Township, Allentown’s East Allentown neighborhood and parts of the Center City neighborhood.<\/p>\n
‘Another warning sign’<\/p>\n
The 22nd House race was one of two special elections in Pennsylvania Tuesday night. In the other, Democrat Jennifer Mazzocco earned 81% of the vote in Pennsylvania’s 42nd state House District in Allegheny County.<\/p>\n
Both races heavily favored Democrats, and their victories guarantees that Democrats will hold at least a one-seat majority in state House.<\/p>\n
“Democrats have the momentum as we continue to win elections up and down the ballot and expand our power across the Commonwealth and nation.” <\/p>\n
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin<\/p>\n
While Tuesday’s results reflected the districts’ partisan divide, that didn’t stop national Democrats from highlighting the results as a bellwether for the upcoming midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin pointed to the results to argue that Democrats efforts to support working families were resonating with voters.<\/p>\n
The special election fell on the same night President Donald Trump delivered his annual State of the Union Address.<\/p>\n
“Their victories tonight are another warning sign to Republicans that their toxic agenda has no place in Pennsylvania,” Martin said in a news release.<\/p>\n
“Democrats have the momentum as we continue to win elections up and down the ballot and expand our power across the Commonwealth and nation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Democrat Ana Tiburcio appeared late Tuesday to have locked up a special election for Pennsylvania’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-311479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311479","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=311479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}