Zucal wins write-in campaign as GOP candidate for Allentown mayor
After losing Democratic primary, he will have second chance against Mayor Tuerk in November
Allentown City Councilman Ed Zucal’s bid to defeat Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk is not over despite losing significantly to the Democratic incumbent in Tuesday’s primary.
Zucal, a Democrat, ran a last-minute write-in campaign for the Republican nomination and secured enough votes to appear on the ballot in November.
According to Lehigh County’s unofficial results, Zucal got 498 votes as a write-in candidate on the GOP ballot. He needed at least 100 to appear on the November ballot. Tuerk received 114 Republican write-in votes.
The Lehigh County Election Board will meet June 4 to conduct the first certification of the primary results and June 8 for the final certification. The meetings will be held 8:30 a.m. in the public hearing room at the county Government Center, 17 S. 7th St., Allentown.
In the Democratic primary, Tuerk beat Zucal by a wide margin – 4,919 to 1,189 – according to unofficial results. Registered voters in Allentown lean heavily Democratic.
At his election night watch party at Union and Finch in Allentown, Tuerk told WFMZ-TV he’s “ready” for a potential rematch against Zucal.
Zucal, a deputy Lehigh County coroner and retired Allentown police sergeant, was elected to council in 2017. He is making his first bid for mayor and did not seek reelection to council.
Tuerk has had a contentious relationship with City Council during his first term. Although they agreed on investigating claims of racial discrimination and harassment brought forth in a 2023 letter from the Allentown branch of the NAACP, the mayor and council have vastly disagreed on how to conduct that investigation.
Zucal was at the forefront of opposition to Tuerk. He co-sponsored a no-confidence vote against the mayor and voted against ending Council’s lawsuit against Tuerk regarding the investigation.
During an April 17 debate, Zucal said Tuerk is “too woke” for Allentown.
“This is a blue-collar city. … This is a city that’s made up of Pennsylvania Dutch, Irishmen, everything. So that’s what I mean by [when I say] we need to get back to what this city was originally,” he said during the Lehigh Valley Public Media-sponsored debate on April 17.
In response, Tuerk accused Zucal of using language that sounded like MAGA ideology but Zucal defended his record, saying he had been a Democrat his entire life and “does not believe in the MAGA system.”