This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s partnership with NOTUS, a nonpartisan news organization that covers government and politics with the fresh eyes of early career journalists and the expertise of veteran reporters.
ALLENTOWN — Heather Cassidy has lived in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley for decades, selling fruits and vegetables at a local farmers market. A lifelong Republican and a three-time Trump voter, Cassidy said she won’t ever vote for a Republican again.
“They’re screwing themselves because nobody is going to vote,” Cassidy told NOTUS. “You will have your boomer Republicans who watch [Sean] Hannity and all that stuff go out and vote. But people like me, normal people, dealing with the cost of living, we’re not voting.”
Cassidy said she’s consistently voted for Republicans because the party best aligns with her values as a Christian. But as the Trump administration has become increasingly involved in foreign conflicts, driving up the costs of housing, gas and groceries in her area, Cassidy said she’s lost faith in the party and the president.
She is not alone. NOTUS interviews with voters across the swing northeastern Pennsylvania district found wide dissatisfaction with both parties for failing to address economic issues and little hope they would take action. Affordability has long been a concern in this region of former coal towns, which have never fully recovered from the demise of the steel industry and have seen an influx of low-income jobs.
In Lehigh County, the unemployment rate is up to 4.9% according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a half percentage point difference from last year. That’s above the U.S. national unemployment rate of 4.3%. The cost of living is also higher than the national average — around 136,500 families in the greater Lehigh Valley area struggle to cover expenses, a report by a local nonprofit found.
Voter frustration over the economy could complicate the reelection bid of freshman Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who won the seat by just over 4,000 votes in 2024 — one of the smallest margins in the country — and now faces significant political headwinds in his November reelection campaign.
President Donald Trump’s approval rating has sunk to 37% nationally, in large part due to affordability worries, and threatens to drag down his party. Trump won the district in 2024.
But Democrats have yet to make headway in convincing voters they would do any better in boosting the economy, leading to voter apathy in a district that could help determine which party controls the House. The district was previously held for three terms by Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, whom Mackenzie ousted. Both House Democrats’ and Republicans’ campaign arms are gearing up to spend big in the race.
Mackenzie told NOTUS that his campaign is entirely focused on the cost of living. While attending a local event to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, the lawmaker said he’s stressed efforts to lower rent costs, specifically touting his work to pass a bipartisan bill aimed at increasing the housing supply across the country. The measure has been stalled in Congress since March.
“We’ve done a lot around housing in particular,” Mackenzie said. “We’re obviously trying to push the housing legislation in D.C., but locally we’ve been able to secure funding through community projects. We had a roundtable a couple of weeks ago with everybody in the housing space. We’re definitely trying to work on these things.”
But voters like Cassidy said Mackenzie’s efforts aren’t enough. She said Republican voters are disillusioned after hearing from candidates who aren’t actually able to bring down costs in the area, no matter how much they talk about the issue.
“No one cares about the people here,” Cassidy said. “I’ve spent many times sitting next to Mackenzie. All they care about is themselves. There isn’t affordable housing.”
Richard Sworley, an unaffiliated farmer from the Poconos, echoed Cassidy. He said he moved out of Allentown 10 years ago due to the rising rent and has been hit hard by the recent spike in gas prices. He said he doesn’t want to lay anyone off from his farm business, so he and his wife are “eating” the extra costs, picking up extra jobs at their local coffee shop.
Sworley said he doesn’t trust the Republicans in charge, but he also hasn’t heard much from Democrats about how to lower prices. He’s always voted on the economy as a business owner and the breadwinner for his family of five, but Sworley said he hasn’t heard a clear message from either party.
Finger-pointing on both sides has turned him off from voting in the November election at all.
“I don’t really care about party lines. It matters if you align with my values and what I think. And right now, I don’t think a lot of them do,” Sworley said. “You can play the blame game all you want. It fixes nothing. It sucks for us. Everybody who’s normal, people who live everyday lives, we’re the ones who suffer from this.”
Voters across the political spectrum told NOTUS they want to see Democrats campaign more aggressively on lowering the cost of living in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. In 2024, residents were bombarded with advertisements and signs blaming former President Joe Biden for spiking costs, but Democrats haven’t done the same this campaign season.
Genesis Ortega, a spokesperson for the city of Allentown, told NOTUS that many of the residents she talks to who blamed inflation on Biden in 2024 aren’t sure how to feel now. “They’re not happy with Trump now, but then at the same time, they also are like, well, what’s the alternative? Because the Democrats don’t have a strong platform,” she said.
Infighting in the district’s Democratic primary is part of the problem, some residents said. At a town hall to discuss economic concerns hosted by a local union and Democratic-aligned groups last week, a union leader lamented high-profile Democrats’ involvement in the primary.
The complaints came after the House Democrats’ campaign arm and Gov. Josh Shapiro endorsed Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter running on eliminating billionaires and super PAC money from elections, for the seat. Federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, former Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure and former U.S. Senate staffer Carol Obando-Derstine are also running.
Though Brooks did not respond to a request for comment from NOTUS, his campaign manager, Jenna Kaufman, said that his legislative priorities on affordability revolve around lowering the costs of prescription medicine and increasing housing supply in the area.
When asked what specific pieces of legislation Brooks supported, Kaufman referenced “Medicare for All” and raising the corporate tax rate.
“He definitely supports capping the cost of prescription drugs at $2,000 a month,” Kaufman said. “When you talk about housing, he talks about the need to build a lot of housing quickly, the need to ban private equity companies from buying up housing stock.”
Others in the district questioned whether electing a Democrat would make any difference in lowering costs.
Frances Quinones-Mullen, a registered Democrat who lives in Bethlehem and owns a Latin food business, said rising gas and grocery prices have complicated her work. None of the Democrats vying to take on Mackenzie in November have clearly presented plans to bring prices down once in Congress, she said.
“I’m not even sure there’s a message that I’d believe at this point. I just need change,” Quinones-Mullen said. “We want our particular person to be running for Congress on [prices], but that’s the easy part. Actually implementing everything they believe, everything they said, will they actually be able to accomplish these things?”
Stephanie Kappeler, another registered Democrat, said voters like her need more than talking points and vague bill proposals from Democrats before they’ll turn out in November. Kappeler called for an “overall strike” when it comes to voting, adding that voters in Pennsylvania’s 7th District should “stop contributing to this madness.”
Democrats and Republicans “are two sides of the same coin, and they’re always going to work to benefit themselves and keep themselves in office,” Kappeler said. “But I don’t actually believe that we’re gonna solve anything at the ballot box. I don’t think that voting has helped in any way.”