ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The field of candidates for Lehigh County executive has thinned.
A little more than a week after filing a nomination petition, former state Rep. Justin Simmons has withdrawn from seeking the Republican nomination.
Armchair Lehigh Valley was first to report the move.
Simmons told the news outlet he decided to run for the seat earlier this year when he thought there would be no Republican candidates to challenge state Rep. Josh Siegel, who is seeking the Democratic nomination.
Simmons was among three Republicans to announce bids for the party’s nomination in the May 20 primary election.
The others are former Allentown police chief and city Councilman Roger MacLean, and former Allentown School Board member Mike Welsh.
Simmons, who was the first of the Republicans to announce his candidacy, told Armchair Lehigh Valley having three Republicans on the ballot worked against the party’s chances to capture the executive seat.
County Executive Phil Armstrong, a Democrat, is in the final year of his second term and cannot seek re-election.
Simmons had been out of politics since 2020, when he chose not to run for re-election to the state House representing the 131st District covering Saucon Valley and parts of Lehigh and Montgomery counties.
That came after reports he missed hundreds of votes while serving in the Legislature, which he partly attributed to obsessive compulsive disorder.
When he announced his run for executive in early February, he said he was “now determined more than ever” after working the past five years in the private sector and “successfully overcoming health issues that his previous opponents used as political fodder against him.”
