{"id":67147,"date":"2025-12-21T23:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T23:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67147\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T23:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T23:39:15","slug":"special-election-for-state-house-22nd-district-is-set-for-feb-24-armchair-lehigh-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67147\/","title":{"rendered":"Special election for state House 22nd District is set for Feb. 24 | Armchair Lehigh Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Armchair Lehigh Valley content is published on lehighvalleylive.com<\/a> as part of a partnership with the website, which aims to give voters nonpartisan factual information. Armchair Lehigh Valley is run by publisher Katherine Reinhard and editor Robert H. Orenstein. For more information, or to subscribe, visit armchairlehighvalley.substack.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A special election<\/a> to fill the 22nd District House seat vacated by Democratic state Rep. Josh Siegel, set to become Lehigh County executive in January, will be Feb. 24.<\/p>\n

Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton issued the required writ of election Wednesday after Siegel resigned the position he has held for three years. He was elected in 2022 and reelected in 2024. Last month, he defeated<\/a> Republican Roger MacLean in the county executive election with 60.6% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Siegel initially planned to resign Jan 1. and then decided on Dec. 31, but he said Wednesday night in a text message to Armchair Lehigh Valley that he and the House leadership agreed on an earlier resignation.<\/p>\n

The date for the special election, which must be at least 60 days after a resignation, would have been in March if he resigned at the end of December. By resigning Wednesday, the date was moved up a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

The speaker\u2019s notice was addressed to Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt and the Lehigh County Election Board, which must begin preparations for the special election. Whoever wins that election will serve until Nov. 30, 2026, according to McClinton\u2019s paperwork.<\/p>\n

There will also be the traditional primary on May 19, where voters will nominate candidates for the Nov. 3 general election to serve the next two-year term.<\/p>\n

Two Democrats \u2014 Allentown City Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach and Julian Guridy, an aide to state Sen. Nick Miller who represents the 14th District \u2014 have expressed interest in gaining the party\u2019s nomination for the special election. Both intend to run in the May primary to see who will represent the party in the November 2026 election for the seat.<\/p>\n

No Republicans have announced intentions to run for the special election or the open seat.<\/p>\n

Lori McFarland, chair of the Lehigh County Democratic Committee, and Joe Vichot, chair of the Lehigh County Republican Committee, were unavailable for comment Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The district, which comprises east Allentown, part of downtown Allentown and part of Salisbury Township, is heavily Democratic. Democrats outnumber Republicans by a more than 2-1 margin and make up more than half of the district\u2019s voters.<\/p>\n

As outlined in state law, the county Democratic and Republican committees will select a candidate to run in the special election. Candidates must file nomination papers with signatures, just like a regular election, and petitions can be challenged in court. Thirty days before the election, Secretary Schmidt would certify the candidates. Voter registration in the 22nd District ends 15 days before the special election.<\/p>\n

McClinton also scheduled a special election for the 42nd District seat held by Dan Miller, a Democrat who in November was elected judge for Allegheny County Court.<\/p>\n

Special elections need to be scheduled for two other House seats held by Republicans who were also elected judges \u2013 Torren Ecker in Adams County and Lou Schmitt in Blair County.<\/p>\n

Before the resignations, Democrats controlled the House 102-101.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armchair Lehigh Valley content is published on lehighvalleylive.com as part of a partnership with the website, which aims…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,836],"class_list":{"0":"post-67147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-election"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67147","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=67147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}