Three seek GOP nomination from new 14th state Senate district
Dean Browning, Cynthia Miller and Omy Maldonado are on ballot
Three candidates will face off in the wide-open race for the Lehigh Valley’s new 14th Senate District in the May 17 Republican Primary.
Former congressional candidate Dean Browning, Lehigh Township Supervisor Cynthia Miller and political newcomer Omy Maldonado are running on the Republican ballot. The new district has no incumbent.
It includes all of Hanover, Salisbury and Whitehall townships and Catasauqua, Coplay, Emmaus and Fountain Hill along with parts of South Whitehall Township and Allentown in Lehigh County. The Northampton County portions of the district are Allen, Bushkill, East Allen, Hanover, Lehigh and Moore Townships and Bath, Chapman, North Catasauqua, Northampton and Walnutport.
Dean Browning
Browning of South Whitehall Township has been a regular fixture in Lehigh Valley politics since getting elected as a Lehigh County commissioner in 2007.
His fortunes, however, have been defined by his 2011 budget vote. The county was facing a $16 million shortfall in the midst of the Great Recession, and commissioners only identified $3 million of potential cuts.
Most of the Republicans on the board maneuvered to reject the tax hike regardless and force then-Executive Don Cunningham to come up with the cuts on his own. Browning refused to back the plan, and the commissioners’ inability to reach a compromise led to a 16% tax hike passing by default.
Cunningham, a Democrat, praised Browning for his political courage, but Republicans haven’t seen it that way.
The tax hike made Browning a target for the then-growing Tea Party movement, and Browning lost the 2011 Republican commissioner primary in a landslide. He went on to lose expensive, heated primaries for Lehigh County executive in 2013, county commissioner in 2015 and Congress in 2018 and 2020.
Browning last made headlines in November 2020. In a bizarre Twitter fracas, he claimed he was a “black gay guy” while downplaying the accomplishments of former President Barack Obama; he later said he intended to quote someone else. The exchange made the rounds on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
For the past six years, Browning has aligned himself with Donald Trump, though the former president endorsed his opponent, Lisa Scheller, during their 2020 congressional primary.
If elected to the state Senate, Browning said he would look to repeal Act 77, which made no-excuse, mail-in voting legal in Pennsylvania. He also said the county must audit every election machine and block wealthy individuals and organizations from donating funds to county election offices, claiming people like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg use the money to “hijack local elections.”
Browning also followed Trump’s lead by pressuring Lehigh County to get tougher on undocumented immigrants, claiming the county was a sanctuary county. Other Republicans denied the claim, saying the county cooperates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement but does not detain people beyond their release date without a court order. The county settled a civil rights lawsuit in 2014 after it illegally held an inmate past his release date at ICE’s request, only to discover ICE had misidentified him.
Browning has promoted himself as a strong advocate for the Second Amendment. On his campaign website, Browning said he opposes “red flag laws,” which allow police or family members to seek a court’s permission to temporarily take away a person’s firearms. The laws are most frequently intended to remove weapons from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others; the laws are often used to remove guns after someone is accused of domestic abuse but not convicted of a crime.
Cynthia Miller
Browning’s support of Trump is not to be outdone in this race. Miller attended the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C., and witnessed the subsequent siege of the Capitol. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported she downplayed the violence on social media and cast it as an attempt to “save Our country.”
“If the message is ignored my concern is the people will take it to a higher level and there will be more blood shed (sic),” she wrote on Jan. 7, according to the article.
Miller, who has served 10 years as a township supervisor, would go on to write a resolution “establishing election integrity.” The resolution mandated that residents must present photo ID before they cast a vote at a polling place. It also forbade the county from establishing mail-in ballot drop boxes within the township and said the township would not recognize mail-in ballots from voters who did not cite an excuse. Anyone who violated the provisions could be imprisoned for up to seven years and fined $15,000, according to the resolution.
The township would go on to rescind the resolution after facing backlash and threats of lawsuits. The township has no authority over local elections, and the resolution’s provisions directly contradicted state law. Northampton County officials warned it could be seen as illegal voter suppression, the Inquirer reported. Miller was the only supervisor who voted against rescinding the resolution.
Miller previously worked for state Sen. Mario Scavello and lost the 2016 Republican primary race for Pennsylvania’s 183rd House District to Zach Mako. She does not appear to have created a campaign website or social media page. It was not clear if she has publicly outlined any policies she would support if elected.
In a Morning Call article, Miller called for empowering parents in their children’s education as a way to stop indoctrination in schools. In school districts across the country, parents and politicians have used similar language to call for banning of books or courses that discuss race, gender and sexuality as well as loosening COVID-19 precautions such as masks and vaccination policies.
Omy Maldonado
Miller’s lengthy tenure in office and Browning’s time in the public eye stand in contrast to Maldonado, of Allen Township.
On his campaign’s donation website, the political newcomer said he grew up in poverty on Bethlehem’s South Side but became the first person in his family to earn a college degree.
The Marine veteran has not outlined any of his political stances on social media or his campaign website. His LinkedIn account said he earned his MBA at St. Joseph’s University and works as a management consultant for Accenture, a Fortune Global 500 company.
Like his fellow Republican candidates, Maldonado is seeking to repeal Act 77. He told The Morning Call that the state’s largest expansion of voting rights in decades is “a recipe for fraud” and that mail-in ballots should be available to limited groups, such as for veterans serving overseas and disabled voters.
Whoever emerges from the Republican primary may face an uphill climb come November.
The website Dave’s Redistricting found the 14th District favors Democrats by nearly 11 percentage points.
Many of those left-leaning voters, however, are in Allentown, which has a history of low voter turnout. Conservatives may hope their motivated base in Lehigh Township and other rural communities may be enough to carry the election.
Maldonado may stand to benefit as the only Latino candidate in the Republican primary. The district contains a large portion of Allentown and its burgeoning Latino community. Maldonado has secured an endorsement from the Hispanic Republican Coalition of PA.
The winner of the primary will likely face Allentown School Board Director Nicholas Miller; Yamelisa Taveras, the CEO and founder of the community group Unidos; or Northampton County Commissioner Tara Zrinski on Election Day. The trio faces off in the district’s Democratic primary. Armchair Lehigh Valley’s story about them will be published Wednesday.
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