Democrats vying to take on Republican Ryan Mackenzie in four-way primary in Pa.’s 7th District

Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, at the heart of the 7th Congressional District, has proven itself in elections to be one of the swingiest regions in the nation.

Democrats are locked in a heated four-way primary race to challenge GOP U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie this fall with the hope of swinging the district back to blue.

The contenders include Bob Brooks, the president of the Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters Association; Ryan Crosswell, a former U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor; Lamont McClure, an attorney who served for the last eight years as Northampton County executive; and Carol Obando-Derstine, an engineer and former U.S. Senate staffer.

The 7th covers Lehigh and Northampton counties and parts of Carbon and Monroe counties in eastern Pennsylvania. They include the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, which comprise the commonwealth’s third-largest metro area. 

And while Carbon County has been reliably red, Lehigh, Monroe and Northampton have voted for President Donald Trump twice in the last decade, but swung back to elect Democrats at the top of the ballots in three of the last five general and presidential elections.

With the race between Mackenzie and Wild decided by only 1% of the vote two years ago, national Democrats are betting on the district to pick up one of the four seats they say they need to win to take the majority in the U.S. House in this year’s midterm elections.

The district is one of 44 Republican-held seats across the country and one of four in Pennsylvania that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has targeted as crucial to that effort.

A dark money PAC called Lead Left has also weighed in on the primary spending more than $2.2 million this month on media and mailers supporting McClure and opposing Brooks and Crosswell. The prompted some candidates to object.

While Democratic voter registration has reversed a trend, outstripping Republican registration gains, that has only been true in part of the 7th District. Lehigh County gained nearly 1,200 net new registered Democrats since last fall, but Carbon, Monroe and Northampton counties still saw GOP gains, picking up about 600 new GOP voters each.

The DCCC has endorsed Brooks, which drew protests from the other Democratic candidates who say there should be a truly open primary for such a pivotal election. But Democratic leaders say Brooks has the right qualifications to take on Mackenzie.

“As a 20-year Bethlehem firefighter and union president, Bob Brooks has been on the frontlines serving the community he loves, he understands the challenges that hardworking Lehigh Valley families are facing because he’s lived them himself, and he has the callouses on his hands to prove it,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement.

In campaign media, Brooks plays up his working class credentials, talking about his work in the community as he drives a plough truck for his lawn and snow removal business. But he’s also running on a record of doing serious work on his union members’ behalf in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C.

“I’ve been fighting for better wages, better health care, better pay for my union members for over 20 years,” he said, noting it affects roughly 8,000 workers in 74 local units. 

Among his victories, Brooks counts the addition of workers’ compensation benefits for first responders suffering from post-traumatic stress injuries. He’s also working with state lawmakers to pass a bill that would ban a group of chemicals known as PFAS from firefighters’ turnout gear.

In Washington, Brooks claims credit for the Social Security Fairness Act, which repealed provisions of federal law that limited or eliminated Social Security benefits for firefighters, police and other public employees across the country.

Outside his role as union president, Brooks said he’s held a laundry list of jobs ranging from bartender to baseball coach.

“I think people can see themselves in me,” Brooks said. “What we’re going to provide is a look into politics from a working class person, and somebody who will actually represent the people here in Pennsylvania 7 the way that they want to be represented, not just as a leader who shows up at a Labor Day picnic.”

Brooks has also benefitted from big-name Democratic endorsements, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, who appeared in a campaign ad with Brooks, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.  

His less politically savvy side has also come out during the campaign. Earlier this month, Axios reported Brooks told a group of college Democrats that Shapiro had asked his union to support the Republican candidate for state Treasurer, Stacy Garrity, over a Democrat who had questioned his suitability as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate.

Last month, reports revealed Brooks’ personal Facebook page included old posts that seemed to endorse right-wing ideas on gun violence and protests over the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

“I made some stupid posts, but I think those who support me … folks locally, organized labor, Josh Shapiro, Bernie Sanders, they know who I am. They’ve stood by me through it all,” Brooks told the Capital-Star, adding that his record speaks for itself. “I’ve spoken about them and in, you know, made my apologies for them, and we all grow.”

Crosswell said his experience as a prosecutor in the DOJ and his career as a Marine Corps officer are unique among candidates for the 7th District seat. 

“I’m the only candidate with significant federal experience confronting issues that we would need to confront in Congress,” he said, noting they include border security, national security, cyber security, campaign finance, preserving election integrity, and corruption. “These are all issues that I dealt with or confronted as a prosecutor, as a Marine.”

As a lawyer in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, Crosswell helped prosecute those who tried to interfere with elections and violated campaign finance laws. Crosswell left the DOJ after Trump demanded it drop the bribery case against former New York Mayor Eric Adams.

“I would have more ability and knowledge to hold this administration accountable than I think any current member of Congress,” he said.

Crosswell said his experience as a lawyer advocating for the people would serve him well in Congress.

“When I’m advocating for policies that would make healthcare more affordable, that would make renewable energy more available, make childcare cheaper or expand universal pre-K, I’m relying on the skill set that I have,” he said.

Crosswell moved to the Lehigh Valley after leaving the DOJ, and he received criticism from opponents for a lack of ties to the area. 

“I grew up in Pottsville, which is 45 minutes from where I’m sitting in Allentown,” he said, adding that he spent time as a high school wrestler competing with teams in the Lehigh Valley. “Allentown is closer to where I grew up than where any of the other three candidates in the race were born.”

McClure, who specialized in asbestos litigation as a lawyer, said he brings experience governing during his eight years as county executive to the 7th District race. He also served as a Northampton County Council member from 2006 to 2013.

“There are three candidates with no experience, and there’s one candidate with experience governing, running a billion dollar budget on an annual basis, with almost 2,000 employees,” McClure said.

McClure notes that he has also stood up to the Trump administration by kicking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of the Northampton County Courthouse. He issued an executive order in 2020 barring agents from making warrantless arrests at the courthouse or jail unless they first provide a detainer and obtain a warrant signed by a federal judge.

“If you want a candidate to take on Mackenzie in the fall, who’s been tested, actually been on ballots, actually won elections, actually has had to govern during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, I think that I am the candidate to best do that,” McClure said. 

He noted none of his opponents have held an elected office.

“We don’t know if they have a glass jaw,” McClure said. “For Democrats, this seat is so important that I think it’s just terribly risky to put someone on the ballot in the fall against a seasoned campaigner like Mackenzie, who is going to be awash in corporate money.”

Obando-Derstine said she also possesses the lived experience of a person from a working class background. Unlike anyone else in the race, Obando-Derstine is an immigrant, who moved from Columbia when she was 3-years-old. 

That gives her a unique perspective among the candidates on life for fellow immigrants in Lehigh County, where about 14% of the population was born outside the United States, she said. In Allentown, the region’s largest city, more than 56% of people identify as Hispanic or Latino.

“I am someone who lived through so many of the challenges that working families face … through empty wallets, sacrifices and even language barriers,” she told the Capital-Star. 

After earning degrees in psychology and social change from Penn State, Obando-Derstine worked for a Head Start program, ran a food pantry and an afterschool program. She also served as executive director for education and child-focused nonprofits.

She then worked for Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey as regional manager in Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties, as well as serving as his Latino Affairs director for the state. She represented the Lehigh Valley on Gov. Tom Wolf’s Advisory  Commission on Latino Affairs and in other volunteer positions for business groups including a regional tech incubator.

Obando-Derstine now works for PPL Electric Utilities after earning a master’s degree from Lehigh University in energy systems engineering.

“What I was doing was I was helping seniors, low income families and small businesses reduce their energy bills, and then at night, as a working mom, I went back to school,” she said.

Her decision to run for Congress came after a conversation with Wild, the last Democrat to hold the 7th District seat. 

“She thought that I had the skill sets to do this tough job of being in Congress,” Obando-Derstine said. She also has Wild’s endorsement along with that of four Latina members of Congress and two Latino members of the state House.

“Latinos make up 20% of the district, and they’re swing voters,” she said. “They’re not reliable Democratic voters. And when, at a time when our party wants to win them back, who better than someone who is fluent in Spanish, who is from this community.”