Lehigh Valley Politics and Election News

Organizers with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, Democratic National Congressional Committee and several other groups invited U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie to a town hall event Thursday over proposed Medicaid cuts. Instead, the first-term Republican will hold his own telephone town hall.

Philip Ginder, 74, who served on the Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners for 24 years, was appointed on Wednesday to fill the vacancy created when Commissioner Robert Piligian resigned in February.

Candidates for Northampton County Council, Allentown City Council, Allentown mayor and Parkland School Board are being challenged in court for allegedly failing to meet legal requirements to appear on the May ballot.

A Lehigh County judge ruled in favor of LoriAnn Fehnel, a Republican candidate for Whitehall Township Commissioner, who challenged that candidate Betsey H. Charles's nominating petition is invalid and should be set aside.

City officials voted in favor of raising the next council president’s salary from $7,600 to $11,400 a year and council members’ annual pay from $7,100 to $10,650. However, City Council decided against salary increases for the next mayor and controller.

This week on Political Pulse, host Tom Shortell speaks with Celeste Dee, owner of Lehigh Valley-based Advantage Political Strategies. The two talk about judicial campaigns.

The vacancy on the Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners will be filled at a meeting on Wednesday night. The board interviewed three candidates on Monday night.

Whitehall Township treasurer/tax collector Tina Koren is asking the Lehigh County Court to reject Commissioner Thomas Slonaker's nominating petition for her job.

Whitehall Township commissioner Republican candidate LoriAnn Fehnel filed a challenge March 14 against fellow Republican candidate Betsey H. Charles, 3212 Chestnut St., based on deficiencies on the latter’s petition.

Gerald C. Yob has been mayor of Freemansburg for 44 years. He served on borough council 12 years before that. Yob turns 96 in August, and plans on running for a 12th term as mayor.

Candidates reach out to potential voters by going door-to-door and hosting listening sessions.

Conflict and tension have ramped up at school board meetings amid the coronavirus pandemic.

J. William Reynolds and John Kachmar clashed on spending, taxes and what to do with the city's share of American Rescue Plan funding.

The Republican candidate for Lehigh County executive, Glenn Eckhart, says there is no point in asking current Executive and Democratic candidate Phil Armstrong to resign right now over the recent federal lawsuit in which Armstrong is named.

Three Hispanic candidates are on the Republican ticket for Lehigh County commissioner.

Harsh words and pointed fingers are common during election season, but the barbs traded in the Northampton County Executive’s race might be a little sharper than most.

Steve Lynch, candidate for Northampton County executive, used the vaccine mandate issue at Gracedale to address a crowd on Oct. 25, 2021, one week before the election.

The five-member Legislative Reapportionment Commission has been waiting for a final, cleaned-up package of census data since the summer.

A recently filed federal lawsuit claims dispatchers at local 911 call centers drank alcohol, slept, and watched movies on the clock.

President Joe Biden is trying to drum up support for a several trillion-dollar infrastructure spending plan that's being negotiated in Congress. The effort included returning to his boyhood home of Scranton.

Voters in Allentown will have the chance to remove English as the city’s “official” language in the upcoming election.

Mike Doyle, who has represented western Pennsylvania in Congress for more than a quarter-century and became the dean of Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation, announced Monday that he will not run again for re-election. As WESA was first to report early this morning, the move comes as the incumbent faced a challenge from the left next year and — if he won — the prospect of being in the minority party in the U.S. House.