From Christmas City to the coal mines: An inside look at the Dems’ ground game in PA’s crucial Lehigh Valley

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Democrats in the two-county Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania said they are confident in their ground game ahead of what could be another narrow election result in the perennial bellwether region.

State Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Bethlehem, a pragmatic Northampton County lawmaker who has served the region for decades, and Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, leader of Lehigh County’s largest city, spoke to Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

Former President Trump won Northampton County in 2016, and lost it in 2020. Lehigh County – typically bluer due to Allentown’s influence – hosts a reliably conservative voting bloc in its rural, Pennsylvania German exurbs.

Tuerk, whose “Band City USA” is also Pennsylvania’s third largest, said he’s heard directly from residents that they largely support Vice President Kamala Harris.

Speaking from a conference of global mayors in Mexico City, Tuerk said dignitaries are coming up to him with interest in Allentown and the way the national election may turn based on the result in his city.

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Allentown, Pennsylvania, the commonwealth’s third-largest city, is seen from the Tilghman Street Bridge. Founded by loyalist William Allen in 1762, the city has gone through drastic change with the decline of its 20th-century shopping hub, but now boasts new developments, including a hockey arena in the center of town and the rebirth of the historic Americus Hotel on Hamilton Street. (Charles Creitz)

“I happen to be from the swingiest district in the commonwealth… What I’m telling everybody is: Allentonians, broadly speaking, are supportive of Kamala Harris,” he said.

“I know this because I’m actually knocking on doors. I go out every Saturday and sometimes Sunday and canvass for the campaign and talk to not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans.”

Tuerk noted Allentown is now a majority-Latino city, and just like the patchwork of Pennsylvania Dutch, Polish, English and Syrian Americans in town, they, too, are not a “monolith.”

But, Latinos in Allentown are mostly concerned about the same things: commodity prices, housing and job opportunities.

“There’s a lot of people who are concerned about the rhetoric that former President Trump uses,” he said, adding that Republicans in the city often voice the same concerns as Democrats in that regard.

“[They’ll] tell me they just can’t vote for the guy [but] they’re not switching their party.”

“But they’re frustrated by the way that Donald Trump talks about our country. They’re frustrated by the way that he talks about people who are in need. So they’re looking for decency. And I think that’s been a pretty recurrent theme about the things that people are concerned with. But it’s primarily the economic issues and things related to housing.”

Allentown, known for hosting America’s oldest community band – the Allentown Band, predating the Boston Pops – was once home to Mack Trucks’ headquarters, and Max Hess’ famed department store on Hamilton Street from 1897 to 1995 – where people as far as the Midwest would flock for holiday shopping and its world-famous strawberry pie under the slogan “You’ll find the best of everything at Hess’.”

In 1982, Billy Joel famously sang about “living here in Allentown,” as Bethlehem Steel was “closing all the factories down” across the river in the Christmas City, and the area was beginning to stare down a long economic downturn.

Since that time, the area has gone through dramatic change – as smoke from “iron and coke; chromium steel” has been replaced by the bright lights of a casino and the “SteelStacks” entertainment complex built amid its hulking, defunct namesake.

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Blast furnaces and stacks from the former Bethlehem Steel along the Lehigh River on Bethlehem’s South Side. The area now hosts an entertainment venue, museum, PBS affiliate and casino. (Charles Creitz)

Not far from Boscola’s office, Harris-Walz signs were scattered along Church Street in Bethlehem’s 18th-century “Moravian” district, while Trump-Vance signs began poking out among their opponents’ placards along Nazareth Pike on the way out of town.

“We are a bellwether county and I feel like not a day goes by when a surrogate, a family member or a candidate themselves is not in the Lehigh Valley stumping for the election,” Boscola said.

“Every race from the presidential down through a local state House seat, the election is everywhere. The Democrats’ ground game is always solid. We have canvassers, phone banks and non-stop text messaging to get out the vote.”

Issues in her district, which includes Northampton County’s Slate Belt plus the entirety of Bethlehem – split between the two counties by Monocacy Creek – include property taxes, the economy, immigration and abortion, she said.

Businesses continue to struggle to find employees, Boscola said, and constituents also bring up the criminal element that is identified with the illegal immigration crisis.

The lawmaker, one of the longest-serving in the Valley, said political messaging about government aid for illegal immigrants is resonating among working-class residents.

On the abortion front, Boscola said she has heard from people who take both sides of the issue while not being “extreme on either side.”

“They believe that people should have choice, but have reservations about on-demand, third-term abortions. They are looking for balance,” she said.

Boscola added she has a bill before the state Senate that would allow registered Independents to cast votes in primaries. If passed, she predicted, Independents would promptly become the fastest-growing party in the area.

“The extremes on either side do not work in the Lehigh Valley,” she said, echoing moderate Easton Democratic Mayor Sal Panto’s remarks to Fox News Digital in a separate interview.

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Pennsylvania State Sen. Lisa Boscola has represented Bethlehem, the Christmas City, for more than two decades. (Office of Pennsylvania State Sen. Lisa Boscola)

“It boils down to an individual, not a ticket, per se. Look at our elected officials over the decades, like our mayors and county executives, they are moderates,” the senator said.

In Lehigh County, Allentown has had a spate of moderate-to-liberal Democratic mayors, including Tuerk, Ray O’Connell and Ed Pawlowski – the latter of whom is currently serving time in federal prison for a pay-to-play scheme.

At the turn of the century, Republican Bill Heydt led the city and was seen as just as popular as his Democratic contemporaries.

While Bethlehem Democratic Mayor J. William Reynolds ultimately did not respond to interview requests, that city last had a Republican mayor in the 1990s, when Kenneth Smith led the city through the collapse of Bethlehem Steel Corp.

The Lehigh Valley’s prior congressman, Republican Charlie Dent, was a moderate who notably eschewed support for Trump – earning him frequent criticism in return.

“Moderates win in the Lehigh Valley because that is who we are at our core,” Boscola said.

“About 20% of Northampton County’s electorate are Independents and party dogma does not persuade them.”

In both counties’ rural northern and suburban southern ends, however, Republicans often hold majorities on township boards.

Such countervailing dynamics demonstrate why races are often so tight in the Valley.

In response to Tuerk’s comments, Trump’s Pennsylvania campaign spokesman Kush Desai said Democrats “can delude themselves into believing that huge swaths of Republicans are voting for another four years of unlimited illegal immigration, rising prices, and war with Kamala Harris all they want, but the reality is that Pennsylvanians – whether they be Democrats, Republicans or independents – want a return to the peace, prosperity and stability of the Trump administration.”

Fox News Digital separately interviewed Lehigh Valley Republicans, whose ground game strategies and sentiments will be the subject of a separate piece.

The Lehigh and Northampton County Democratic Committees did not respond to interview requests.

Fox News Digital’s Matteo Cina contributed to this report.