What's the Electoral Mood in the Lehigh Valley?

A quiet Sunday morning in Allentown belied the intensity and importance of the upcoming midterm elections. Speaking with Democrats and Republicans in the Lehigh Valley, voters in both political parties had two major things in common.

They were mad at the other side and they blamed the localization of divisive national policies and rhetoric.

Democrats claimed they have enthusiasm on their side heading into the campaign’s final two months. Voters they talk to are frustrated with President Donald Trump’s unfulfilled promises of economic prosperity. Prices have gone up, not down, they say, due to Trump’s military incursion into Iran destabilizing oil markets and prioritizing vanity projects over policies to help working Americans.

RealClearPennsylvania spoke to party officials and door knockers on September 12, eight weeks before the midterm election. One of the many tossup races that will decide the U.S. House of Representatives will be the 7th congressional district in Pennsylvania. U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie won the seat for Republicans in 2024 by defeating Democratic incumbent Susan Wild by one percentage point – just over 4,000 votes.

Mackenzie will try to defend the seat, one of four Pennsylvania Democrats are targeting to flip, against union representative and firefighter Bob Brooks. Brooks won a contentious primary in May, backed by nationally recognized figures, including incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro who will head the Democratic ticket for a second term and fourth overall statewide office win. 

One poll in the race came out in July from House Majority PAC, giving Brooks a 47-43% edge. The advantage was smaller than the generic House polling that shows Democrats ahead this month. Voters also listed Trump at 51% unfavorable and 44% favorable. This week, though, Franklin & Marshall released a 7th district poll showing Brooks with a 45-40% advantage over Mackenzie. 

Allentown resident Juan DeLeon said cost of living has been a major issue that he’s heard from those he’s met. 

“Work is scarce,” he said. “You have people that are qualified to do the job but for whatever reason, the job market isn’t in their favor. You have the cost of paying rent, you’re being gouged left and right. For families, how do you [put] food on the table and a roof over your family’s head? I don’t care what party you’re from, that’s an American issue. That’s not a party issue.”  

DeLeon also said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and their “Gestapo mentality” are hurting immigrant communities, a long-time presence in the Lehigh Valley. Students are afraid to go to school for fear of detainment. Despite many municipalities and Lehigh County passing policies that limit ICE activity, there is still concern of extrajudicial activity.

While Lehigh County remains strongly Democratic, Albertus resident Jeanette Wrobel said the Republicans have made inroads with the county’s established and growing Latino population, along with law enforcement officers. She said that the party has found success with immigrants who naturalized legally through the long and arduous process to attain citizenship. 

“Everyone wants to talk about immigration, everyone wants to talk about ICE, ICE, ICE, all the focus there,” Wrobel said. “No one is talking about the people who did get rewarded with their citizenship, who did it all the right way.”

However, there is not the same confidence in voter turnout that Democrats claimed. Wrobel said the Democrats have harnessed organized labor to drive voter turnout and Republicans “have given up.”

Another thing folks are talking about is the possibility of a data center coming to South Whitehall, across the street from Parkland High School. Signs against the Atlas Data Center were visible in some front yards. Republicans said the municipality needs jobs to return while Democrats said the projects will create more problems than it solves.

Jim Vinup grew up in Allentown and said he understands the modern world runs on data-driven devices. He showed a picture of Trump shaking his hand created by one of his grandsons from an AI prompt. He said meetings over the proposed data centers have devolved into shouting matches and residents cannot get reliable information.

“Some people have said, ‘If you don’t have the data center there, what could possibly go there?’,” Vinup said. “Everybody was happy for all these years that you couldn’t see what was going on. You get to the top of the hill, you could see the chemical company or … dynamite. Out of sight, out of mind. Now they want to build this data center and people are going berserk.”

DeLeon echoed Vinup’s sentiments about government meetings not sufficiently educating residents, speaking about his 19-year-old son’s experience at a city council hearing. He said he later talked to Gov. Shapiro to press for more regulations on the data centers, particularly that they don’t draw from community resources like electricity or water to operate. 

“City Council didn’t have any straightforward answers,” DeLeon said of what his son and his friends witnessed. “You had a representative of the company that was putting the data center up that was saying, ‘You guys don’t need to worry.’ No, this is our community. What do you mean we don’t need to worry?”

Paul Moat from Whitehall said he has experience working with data centers as a systems engineer. He said the claims made by the centers’ opponents were “bullcrap.”

“It’s not like they swallow a river,” he said. “I’m seeing my Republican friends get caught up in this frenzy and it’s ridiculous. [For electricity] President Trump said, ‘Good, let them build a little nuclear power plant right next to it and then feed back in and make our costs go down.’ But the whole thing with the water, the noise, there’s no [electromagnetic field] coming out of a data center.”

To the claims made by Republicans that Democrats were being overrun by socialists, Terri Purdy from Emmaus had one simple retort.

“We’re not offering $5,000 to every person,” she said, referencing Trump’s promise of a “dividend” if Republicans kept control of Congress. “What the hell?”

Marco Cerino is a reporter based in Philadelphia.