BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The nation's leading lawmakers for the Democratic and Republican parties will both be in the Lehigh Valley on Thursday, appearing with their candidates in perhaps the country's biggest toss-up congressional district.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will return to the Lehigh Valley around 12:30 p.m. to campaign for state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District.
Johnson swung through the region in May as the guest speaker for a Mackenzie fundraiser and toured the Cetronia Ambulance Corps in South Whitehall Township.
Hours later, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., will visit the Easton area for a voting rights roundtable with U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley.
The conversation will discuss the stakes of the 2024 election and threats posed to American democracy by extremists, according to a news release. The event is slated for 2 p.m.
While it will be Jeffries' second time visiting the Lehigh Valley; he campaigned for Wild during her first congressional run in 2018. Democratic House leaders have made a habit of visiting the swing region in recent years. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, then the House majority whip, campaigned for Wild at Greater Shiloh Church in Easton last year.
The VIP visits are the latest sign of the Lehigh Valley's importance on the national stage.
Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District is one of about two dozen toss-up districts nationwide, and winning the district could determine which party controls the legislative agenda in Congress next year.
The district includes all of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties plus a sliver of Monroe county.
