Recapping drama in May primary
Redistricting drives voter turnout, incumbents lose, ballots remain an issue
It’s summer and political news in the Lehigh Valley for the most part is taking a break before fall election campaigns ramp up after Labor Day.
So it’s a good time to look back at the May 17 primary, which dispelled the notion that midterm primaries lack drama. Not this year in the Lehigh Valley, where it took weeks before some races were settled.
Where to begin?
How about with the once-a-decade redistricting that prompted unusual state legislative primary battles by redrawing the 16th District Senate seat and creating new state districts for the 14th (state Senate) and the 22nd (state House), and reshaping the 134th and 187th Districts (state House)?
Redistricting was a factor in losses by two longtime Republican legislators – Sen. Pat Browne (28 years as a state senator and representative) and Rep. Gary Day (14 years in the state House).
Next, two races were decided by razor-thin margins. In a stunning upset, Browne lost by 19 votes to Parkland School Board member Jarrett Coleman in the 16th District GOP primary, while Allentown School Board member Nick Miller won the Democratic nomination for the new 14th District over Tara Zrinski by 42 votes.
Browne declined to seek a recount for his Senate district seat, which lost parts of Allentown while gaining sections of Lehigh and Bucks counties. Zrinski, a Northampton County commissioner, conceded a month after the May 17 primary when a federal court case about uncounted ballots in that contest ended with a settlement. Lehigh and Northampton counties agreed that in future elections they would alert voters if they fail to place their mail-in ballots in secrecy envelopes.
And in the Republican primary in the 187th District, Day lost to incumbent state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (nine years in office), who captured 61% percent of the vote. The rare incumbent vs. incumbent match-up occurred because Lower Macungie Township, where Mackenzie lives, was moved from his 134th District to Day’s 187th.
The primary gave the Lehigh Valley’s Harrisburg delegation at least three new members.
The general election contest for the 16th District Senate seat to be vacated by Browne will pit Republican Coleman, an airline pilot elected last year to the Parkland School Board on an anti-mask and anti-critical race theory platform, against Democrat Mark Pinsley, the Lehigh County controller.
For the 14th District Senate seat, Dean Browning, a Republican and former Lehigh County commissioner, will face Miller.
In the 22nd House District, Republican Robert E. Smith Jr., a former Allentown School Board member, will face Joshua Siegel, a Democratic Allentown councilman.
There’s more.
Even though the Lehigh County judicial election wasn’t even on the 2022 primary ballot, it made news when it was finally settled a month after the primary.
The November 2021 election for a third spot on the county court remained undecided seven months later. Republican David Ritter led Democrat Zachary Cohen by 71 votes after the election. However, the outcome remained in doubt as a legal battle proceeded through county, state and federal courts before finally landing in the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of May.
The dispute? Whether mail-in ballots, received on time but without required handwritten dates by voters on the outer envelope, should be counted. The Supreme Court eventually declined to hear the case, meaning a May 20 federal appeals court decision would take effect; the court ordered that the county should count the undated ballots. After those 257 ballots were tallied in June, Cohen gained enough votes to defeat Ritter by five votes.
Undated ballots weren’t the only controversy resulting from Pennsylvania’s no-excuse mail-in voting law.
Ballots delivered to drop-off boxes, rather than being mailed, became a contentious issue in the weeks before the primary. Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin decided to have video and detective surveillance at drop-box locations to ensure that voters followed the law by delivering only one ballot. (Under the law, people can drop off a ballot for someone else if they have a signed affidavit from the voter.)
Martin issued his directive because his office earlier determined that at least 288 people dropped off multiple ballots at county boxes in the November 2021 election. After acting Commonwealth Secretary Leigh Chapman, the ACLU and others called his plan “voter intimidation” and asked him to reconsider, Martin refused to rescind his order.
Competitive races, especially with Republican contests for U.S. senator and governor at the top of the ballot, drove voter turnout to likely record numbers for a midterm primary.
Turnout was 32.47% in Lehigh County and 32.75% in Northampton County. That was the highest turnout in a Lehigh County midterm primary since at least 1978, which is as far back as the county shows election data on its website. In Northampton County, turnout was the highest since at least 2014, the last midterm primary data available on its website.
2022 primary voter turnout by the numbers
Lehigh County
Turnout - 32.47%
Democrats - 28.13%
Republicans - 38.40%
Total ballots - 63,999
Election day ballots - 44,182
Mail ballots - 19,559
Provisional votes - 258
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Northampton County
Turnout - 32.75%
Democrats - 30.66%
Republicans - 35.51%
Total ballots - 58,482
Election day ballots - 37,834
Mail-in ballots - 20,531
Provisional votes - 117
Source: Lehigh and Northampton counties
Wednesday: Results from the Democratic and Republican state committee races from the Lehigh Valley.
Friday: East Allen Township referendum to increase the earned income tax for open space preservation.