{"id":93551,"date":"2026-01-22T12:20:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/93551\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T12:20:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:20:28","slug":"first-debate-set-for-democrats-in-crowded-primary-for-lehigh-valleys-seat-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/93551\/","title":{"rendered":"First debate set for Democrats in crowded primary 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

\u201cBusiness Matters,\u201d<\/a> a long-standing show on WFMZ\u2019s Channel 69, will host a debate featuring Democratic contenders in the 7th Congressional District on April 1.<\/p>\n

Seven Democrats have said they will run in the May 19 primary election, but only five candidates will be invited to participate, according to a press release.<\/p>\n

\u201c… we will implement an appearance policy to assure we include the top contenders and provide time for meaningful conversation. We will be using criteria including fundraising benchmarks to narrow the field to the top 5 contenders,\u201d the press release said.<\/p>\n

Any additional candidates will be invited to appear on \u201cBusiness Matters\u201d in a later segment, the press release said.<\/p>\n

The 7th District covers Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties and a sliver of Monroe County. The seat is held by freshman Republican Ryan Mackenzie, who bested three-term Democrat Susan Wild in 2024.<\/p>\n

Five candidates \u2013 Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter and state union president; Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor; Carol Derstine-Obando, a former aide to then U.S. Sen Bob Casey Jr.; Lamont McClure, a former Northampton County executive, and Mark Pinsley, Lehigh County\u2019s controller \u2013 announced their campaigns last year.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Aiden Gonzalez, the 27-year-old vice president of the newly reformed Lehigh Valley Young Democrats, and Lewis Shupe, a self-described \u201crenegade Democrat\u201d from Allentown, entered the race.<\/p>\n

For the first nine months of 2025, Brooks, Crosswell, Derstine-Obando, McClure and Pinsley raised a combined $1.87 million. If Gonzalez and Shupe did not raise money in 2025, they will not have to file a report.<\/p>\n

The deadline for filing the 2025 campaign finance report is Jan. 31. The first reporting period for 2026 runs from Jan. 1 to March 31 with a filing deadline of April 15.<\/p>\n

Candidates also face a March 10 deadline to obtain 1,000 signatures on their nomination petitions. After that, legal challenges can be mounted with the potential of removing candidates from contention.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness Matters\u201d is hosted by Tony Iannelli, president and CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. He will serve as the debate moderator.<\/p>\n

The debate will be held noon to 1:30 p.m. at Moravian University\u2019s Foy Hall, 342 Main St., Bethlehem. Information on how the public can attend will be released at a later date.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness Matters\u201d will air the debate in two segments \u2013 at 7:30 p.m. on April 6 and April 13.<\/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":93552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-93551","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93551","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=93551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}