Firefighter Bob Brooks wins Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie

Firefighters union president Bob Brooks captured the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District this fall.

Brooks won 42% of the votes cast in the Lehigh Valley district, according to unofficial results, in a hotly contested four-way race that attracted millions in spending by a mysterious dark money PAC. The Associated Press called the race for Brooks about 10 p.m.

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

He prevailed over 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.

It’s considered one of the swingiest districts in the nation, despite including reliably red Carbon County. Lehigh, Monroe and Northampton, on the other hand, have voted for President Donald Trump twice in 2016 and 2024, but swung back to elect Democrats at the top of the ballot in intervening years.

The district went from reelecting Democrat Susan Wild to her fourth term in Congress in 2022, to electing Mackenzie, a one-term state representative, in 2024.

This year, Wild endorsed Obando-Derstine, an immigrant who moved from Columbia with her parents as a child and worked for Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey as a regional manager and Latino Affairs director for the state. She now works for PPL Electric Utilities after earning a master’s degree from Lehigh University in energy systems engineering.

Brooks had backing from the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which targeted the 7th District among four in Pennsylvania and more than 40 across the country in an effort to flip Republican-held seats and win a majority in the House.

He also had Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s endorsement. Shapiro, who is launching his own reelection campaign after an unchallenged primary, stumped with Brooks on Sunday in Allentown at a festival he co-hosted with a local Spanish-language radio station. 

Other contenders complained about the DCCC’s involvement in the primary.

“For a race that was supposed to be an open primary, the party establishment’s intervention spoke volumes about what the keepers of the status quo are hoping for,” said Crosswell, a former public corruption and election integrity prosecutor. He said his experience as a Marine Corps officer and DOJ lawyer would allow him to hold the Trump administration accountable.

Candidates also raised alarms about the outside influence of a shadowy super PAC that spent at least $2.4 million to influence the race in the 7th District and other Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Texas, according to the Campaign Legal Center. The nonprofit pro-democracy legal group noted Lead Left PAC appears to have Republican ties and filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against Lead Left. 

The suit alleges the PAC strategically gamed reporting deadlines to avoid disclosing its donors and funneling money through shell companies to avoid revealing the partisan ties of its vendors. And it asks the FEC to hold Lead Left accountable for concealing how it spends its money. 

The media and mailers the PAC has funded in Pennsylvania have been in support of McClure and attacked Brooks and Crosswell.