Lehigh Valley Politics and Election News

Federal agents were at Northampton County Prison on Friday morning to apprehend an inmate upon his release. The man was alleged to be in the country illegally. The level of cooperation between ICE agents and the county has come under attack by U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie.

Phil Armstrong highlighted a long list of accomplishments and laid out a few more plans for his last year in office Thursday night.

Mayor J. William Reynolds announced Thursday he's running for a chance at another term at mayor. Reynolds, a Democrat, said that while he's excited for another shot at the job, the successes of the past four years have been a group effort.

Lehigh County relies on hundreds of millions in state and federal funding to provide services to residents. The fate of that funding is unclear as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk target federal funding.

U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh Valley, has four office locations, including two in Lehigh County. Bilingual services are available in the new Center City Allentown location that opened this week.

House Republicans want to slash federal spending by $2 trillion and are eying cuts and restrictions to the $880 billion Medicaid program. Demonstrators say they'll keep applying pressure to U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh Valley, to oppose such plans.

Cristian Pungo said he’s ready to jump in and help the city address some difficult challenges, including its lack of affordable housing and infrastructure that needs investment.

Easton City Councilwoman Taiba Sultana has announced she will be running for a seat in council again, citing her work fighting for marginalized voices and minority rights.

Longtime Eastonian Sharbel Koorie has announced his candidacy for Easton City Council's District 2 seat.

On this week's episode of Political Pulse, Tom Shortell and Chris Borick discuss themes — including immigration — that are starting to carry over into local races.

Take a look at stories throughout the week of which we are most proud, had a profound impact on readers or that you might want to look at again.

If adopted, the amendments to the county's home rule charter would set new term limits for the county executive and controller, while codifying existing limits for members of council

U.S. Rep. Susan Wild supported a plan Wednesday to temporarily suspend the debt ceiling. If an agreement is not reached in the next week, the U.S. could devastate the global economy by defaulting on its debt.

All primary results in Lehigh and Northampton counties are now official after election workers ran audits and validated totals over the past two weeks.

Allentown saw almost 500 crashes where a pedestrian was hurt in the past five years, eight of which killed people. Federal funding is contributing $312,000 for a study to improve road safety.

City Council members Ce-Ce Gerlach, Santo Napoli and Candida Affa finished as the top three vote-getters in more than a third of Allentown's precincts in their bids for re-election.

Gavin Holihan, the Democratic and Republican nominee for Lehigh County district attorney, said he hopes to find resources to assist underserved families so at-risk kids today don't become victims or defendants a decade from now.

Take a look at stories throughout the week of which we are most proud, had a profound impact on readers or that you might want to look at again.

Republican William Rowe, a write-in candidate for the Bethlehem-area seat on Northampton County Council, will advance to the November election.

Meanwhile, Lehigh County Sheriff Joe Hannah and district attorney candidate Gavin Holihan locked up both primaries in their races.

Members of Northampton County Council's government committee suggested changes to the county home rule charter, including a commission that could rewrite it altogether.

Voter turnout was about 23.74% among Democrats and Republicans in Northampton County — only slightly better than Lehigh County’s 22.5% voter turnout rate.