{"id":88468,"date":"2026-01-16T12:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T12:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/88468\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T12:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T12:36:07","slug":"crowded-field-complicates-democratic-primary-in-race-for-lehigh-valleys-seat-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/88468\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowded field complicates Democratic primary in race for Lehigh Valley\u2019s seat in Congress"},"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

As the midterm election year<\/a> takes off, the field of Democratic candidates has grown to seven in the 7th Congressional District, adding a striking dynamic to a race where the winner will face freshman Republican Ryan Mackenzie in November.<\/p>\n

Five candidates \u2013 Bob Brooks<\/a>, a retired firefighter and state union president; Ryan Crosswell,<\/a> a former federal prosecutor; Carol Derstine-Obando<\/a>, a former aide to then U.S. Sen Bob Casey Jr.; Lamont McClure<\/a>, a former Northampton County executive, and Mark Pinsley,<\/a> Lehigh County\u2019s controller \u2013 had campaign announcements on the books by the fall.<\/p>\n

Then, in early January, two other candidates emerged \u2013 Aiden Gonzalez<\/a>, the 27-year-old vice president of the newly reformed Lehigh Valley Young Democrats, and Lewis Shupe<\/a>, a self-described \u201crenegade Democrat\u201d from Allentown.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not unusual to see multiple candidates vying for a nomination in a primary.<\/p>\n

Democrat Susan Wild, who was defeated by Mackenzie in a run for a fourth term in Congress in 2024, faced five opponents when she won the primary in 2018, the year she was first elected.<\/p>\n

Republican incumbent Charlie Dent opened a door to Democrats that year when he announced he was not seeking reelection after 13 years in office.<\/p>\n

2018 was also President Donald Trump\u2019s first midterm election. Historically, the party controlling the White House has lost ground in Congress when the president\u2019s popularity has waned. Democrats took control of the House with a net gain of 40 seats.<\/p>\n

The May 19 primary is taking place under a similar scenario with Wild\u2019s loss creating a chance for a new Democrat to be elected in the 7th and Trump\u2019s approval ratings in the low 40s.<\/p>\n

Democrats think they can do a repeat of 2018, seeing Mackenzie as vulnerable because he defeated Wild by 1%, one of the slimmest House win margins that year.<\/p>\n

Sam Chen, a Republican strategist and founder of the Lehigh Valley-based Liddell Group, said the Democratic contenders have their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the most exciting and toughest place to run a campaign, whether you\u2019re a Republican or a Democrat,\u201d said Chen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe voters here split their tickets. That makes it really tricky because you really have to earn their vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crafting a message<\/p>\n

The 7th covers Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties and a sliver of Monroe County.<\/p>\n

Democrats hold a slight registration edge with 41% of the voters versus 38% for Republicans. Another 20% are mostly unaffiliated with a small number belonging to third parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s crafting that narrative. It\u2019s knowing your district inside and out enough to know what you\u2019re going to say to whom and then to do it in those incremental bits,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n

He learned this when he was Republican Kevin Dellicker\u2019s campaign manager for his unsuccessful primary runs in the 7th in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

Brit Crampsie, owner of an eponymously named communications company specializing in advocacy groups, said candidates need a seasoned campaign team behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to rely on the messages that come out of your campaign, that external communication, things like your mailers, your digital ads, your website, your TV commercials, those are the things that reach more people than you will be able to individually,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

With a crowded race, Chen said messaging can be tricky.<\/p>\n

\u201cNegative campaigning gets a lot harder. Candidates have limited funds and bandwidth and going negative on [all] candidates will be hard and, likely, unwise. Look for candidates to sell themselves instead of criticizing each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo stand out in such a crowded field, candidates need to build coalitions and find a vein to run in \u2013 which candidates are progressive, which ones are moderate, who\u2019s the \u2018outsider\u2019 candidate, who pulls the veterans or the educators or the labor unions, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, said having a candidate zero in on a faction of voters can end up hurting party outcomes. He said the winner in multicandidate races doesn\u2019t need 50% of the vote but can land on the top of the ballot with a plurality. For example, Wild won in 2018 with 33.5% of the vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with crowded primaries for the political party is that they can produce candidates that aren\u2019t well suited for a general election,\u201d Borick said.<\/p>\n

As an example, Borick cited the 2022 gubernatorial race where state Sen. Doug Mastriano won the eight-candidate Republican primary with 43.8% of the vote by appealing to the party\u2019s populist base.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when matching up against a more moderate Democrat in the form of Josh Shapiro in the General Election, he was trounced, appearing too extreme for a broader electorate,\u201d Borick said.<\/p>\n

Borick said Shapiro\u2019s endorsement of Brooks likely reflects worries that an unelectable candidate will win the primary and that the governor\u2019s imprimatur will sway voters to vote for him.<\/p>\n

Still a lot of unknowns<\/p>\n

With the 7th\u2019s reputation as a swing district, the seven Democrats are running under a national lens.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be one of the most closely watched and best funded races in the entire country,\u201d said Crampsie whose experience in campaigns includes being a field worker in 2010 for then Democratic Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan\u2019s unsuccessful run against Dent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balance of Congress essentially hinges on this seat and a couple of others in Pennsylvania,\u201d Crampsie said.<\/p>\n

The other must-win House seats for both parties are the 1st in Bucks and part of Montgomery counties, held by Republican Brian Fitzpatrick; the 8th in the state\u2019s Northeast, held by Republican Rob Bresnahan; and the 10th in Central Pennsylvania, held by Republican Scott Perry.<\/p>\n

The next two months will tell a lot where the primary race is headed.<\/p>\n

The deadline for filing the 2025 campaign finance report is Feb. 2, giving a good idea on where support is picking up or slipping. For the first nine months of 2025, the Democrats raised a combined $1.87 million, an amount that nearly matches Mackenzie\u2019s $1.92 million.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the 7th District race clocked in at $37 million, the most expensive House campaign in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Starting Feb. 17, the candidates will have until March 10 to collect 1,000 signatures from voters in the 7th to get on the Democratic ballot \u2013 no easy task with seven candidates in the running.<\/p>\n

Chen noted that voters can only sign one nomination petition in the race, meaning candidates will collectively have to get 7,000 valid signatures.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing to watch is whether all the candidates are able to make the ballot, especially those without a campaign infrastructure in place,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n

Candidates with strong campaign teams will be skilled in getting valid signatures. They also will be going over petitions line by line looking for ways to legally challenge them to keep opponents off the ballot.<\/p>\n

Given the fundraising needs and nomination petition process, Crampsie said, \u201cI think that by the time we get to the primary, I don\u2019t know if all of these people are going to be on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoever lands on top, she said, party members will coalesce around the May 19 winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will support whoever the winner of the primary is. The number one goal is to beat Ryan Mackenzie,\u201d Crampsie said.<\/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":88469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,4881,7097,4884,34,5718,24776,50,1887],"class_list":["post-88468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-capitol-hill","tag-congress","tag-dc","tag-donald-trump","tag-federal-government","tag-legislative-branch","tag-politics","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88468","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=88468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}