Lessons from Lehigh: An interview with County Executive-elect Josh Siegel

Josh Siegel will soon be trading in his Harrisburg role as state representative for the opportunity to serve as Lehigh County’s next – and youngest-ever – county executive.

Prior to taking office, Siegel spoke with City & State about his county-level campaign, what lessons Democrats can learn from his successful campaign for county executive, and offered a glimpse of his agenda for Lehigh County. 

The following conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. 

What motivated you to run for this seat and to go from a state-level role to county executive?

I had run for mayor of Allentown when I was very young, so that was the first elected office I'd ever run for. I was 22 and fresh out of college, and I had always seen the power, value and impact that a strong executive can have on the community. For me, running for county executive was motivated largely by the fallout from the 2024 election: the declining credibility of institutions, democracy, and the party. Obviously, the brand of the Democratic Party has never been worse and more toxic, and people have never had less faith in government or institutions in general.  I was particularly enamored by a speech that Pete Buttigieg had given shortly after the 2024 election, where he was talking about the idea of the local as our salvation, and that in an era of extreme gridlock, both in Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, there is a lot of transformative power in these local elected positions to be sort of a laboratory of not just democracy, but of the theory and philosophy of governance. 

I think the county executive role – and executives in general, whether they be mayors or county commissioners – I really think local government in this era is the opportunity for us to rebuild the Democratic Party brand. I think it’s an opportunity for us to show what good governance and decisive, urgent governance looks like. It’s the best place for us to win back credibility and faith in voters across the ideological spectrum, because I think that what you pay the most attention to is your local community. I think there has been, rightfully so, a lot of criticism of ineffective local leadership. I think it’s no surprise that some of the places where President Donald Trump made the most significant inroads were places that have been governed by Democrats for generations, and where leadership has been called into question. Some of the most pervasive issues of our time, housing affordability, public safety, quality of life – if your test case for governance at your local level is not your best foot forward, people see that. I think they see that as indicative of the party's ineffectiveness as a whole, and they see the party not leading boldly and decisively or addressing day-to-day issues.

What did you hear from Lehigh County voters while you were campaigning? What were the key concerns and issues that they were communicating to you?

A lot of what I encountered at the doors was about the affordability crisis – particularly the cost of housing in the Lehigh Valley, where we're 10,000 housing units short of where we need to be, even though we are adding roughly 4,000 residents a year. There’s a tremendous gulf between the number of homes available and the number of people running to be here in the Valley because of our quality of life. So I heard a lot about the cost of living, housing affordability, rising rents, the inability to find starter homes, and more. 

But I also heard constant angst and outrage at everything happening in D.C., and people looking to local government as a buttress and a backstop. Elections came up a lot, not only because they’re a critical function of county government, but also because people see a sort of grand chess game playing out that the Trump administration is engaged in, both in gerrymandering congressional districts trying to hold their majority, but also, just efforts to basically corral and coerce states to give up sensitive voter data to try to – to the best of their ability – intimidate the election process. So a lot of folks were genuinely worried about how the midterms are going to play out, like, “Are we going to have free and fair elections in 2026? Are we going to even have the ability to make our voice heard in the midterm elections?” Obviously, Lehigh is at the heart of the 7th Congressional District, and we’re going to be a top targeted seat next year. So I heard a lot about making sure that our elections were protected and defended in terms of how they are carried out, how they're administered, but also having someone who's not afraid to defy the administration, whether it be fighting them in the courts or working with other jurisdictions making sure that our polling places are protected – that we don't have ICE or National Guard being deployed to intimidate voters. 

Then, of course, there’s the fallout from the impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Our county government budget is 78% state and federal funding, so we are the ones tasked with taking care of our neighbors. So, mental health, what’s going to happen to people's SNAP benefits, and how are our local food banks going to respond to that? We’re one of the last counties in the commonwealth that runs a publicly operated nursing home, so people are worried about whether or not that was going to stay open. How do we maintain our commitment to senior citizens in Lehigh County so that that nursing home exists for the next generation that's going to retire? So this is really a local election where federal issues and concerns are bleeding down to the local level, and in the areas where we actually have a tangible impact on those federal issues. I don't think we have the luxury of viewing these local offices as separate or divorced from what's happening at the federal level. It's all connected.

What was your primary message that you looked to send to voters?

I do think one of the Democratic Party's past faults is that we’ve been obsessed with crafting the perfect policy platform and forgetting that your policy is only part of a bigger narrative. The message that we had and what we focused on before anything else was trying to tap into the mood and the angst that voters were feeling – and where we thought the electorate was at in almost like a political-spiritual sense. I’m the youngest county executive in the history of Pennsylvania, so we talked very much about a new generation of leadership. Still, we also talked about a new politics – and that was really the central premise of our message. Not just a new generation, but a new way of thinking about politics and a new way of talking about it. So we really characterized our campaign as not left versus right, or red versus blue, but right versus wrong – and that this was a moment where we really do need to change the way that we approach tackling challenges. So that means accepting that it’s time to be bold and audacious, and that people are looking for leaders who are decisive and lead with a sense of urgency. I really believe that if you’re campaigning and the scale of your solutions doesn’t match the severity of the crisis, you have an authenticity gap. The house is on fire and you’re showing up with a bucket of water as the solution. Voters see that right away. I think they like having a sense that you're not up to the task, or that you don't really realize how truly concerned or anxious they are about what's happening. So I think that was really what enabled us to be so successful and allowed us to win by such a wide margin. I really do think people … they kind of long for, if you will, a post-partisan politics. Both parties have never been more unpopular. We acknowledge, in many ways, that we were a different type of Democrat, that we were just as frustrated by our own party as anyone else. We thought our party had failed, in many ways, to step up and be bold and decisive and have a sense of urgency about how, rightfully so, people are anxious about the economy – and also just frankly pissed off at the political system. I think that is what really made us successful – is we started with a narrative, we started with a story, which is what I really think we've lost in the party. 

You mentioned the 7th Congressional District and how purple and competitive the Lehigh Valley can be. Given everything that you've experienced, what do you think candidates running in the region, and even Democrats more broadly, can learn from the campaign you ran?

What we’ve seen is a desire for authenticity and genuineness. There is this sense that purple means you have to be cautious. Purple means that you have to run this walking-on-eggshells campaign. Look, we didn't shy away from many issues people might deem controversial or provocative. It’s 50-50 in the 7th, but we didn’t shy away from talking about masked ICE raids and the excesses and the disturbing and extraordinarily dangerous violations of the Constitution and due process. We centered our campaign on democracy and immigration. 

I think there were a lot of post-2024 prognoses that said, “Democracy just didn’t play, don’t talk about democracy. We centered our campaign too much on elections and democracy and didn't resonate with voters.” I think that’s not true. I think people do care about democracy writ large. They care about democracy as an institution, as a concept. People look at our political system as it exists now, captured by special interests, big money being corrosive. They look at the political system as unresponsive and ineffective. I think when you’re saying, “Hey, you have to protect and preserve democracy,” they’re saying, “This version of democracy? This democracy that I don’t see as responding to my day-to-day problems? This democracy full of leaders who don’t speak to my challenges and who’re desperately seeking the most poll-tested message so they’re inoffensive and uninspiring?” We are seeing that people are very clearly concerned about democracy. They don’t like the authoritarian actions of this administration. What they’re also saying is that they want a better democracy. They want to protect democracy, but they also want to save it from the things that have corroded it, destroyed it, and made it ineffective and unresponsive, like big money, like special interests, unlimited campaign contributions, the unchecked power of oligarchs and corporate greed. 

I think my campaign, I think (Northampton County Executive-elect) Tara Zrinski’s campaign, we both won by historic margins, uncharacteristically large margins in this purple region. We did it by being very clear about the challenges we face and unapologetic about the solutions we put forth, and not shying away from the fact that big challenges require big solutions and big responses. I think people are looking for that. 

I really hope people in the 7th understand: yes, you need to run on affordability; yes, you need to talk about how you’re going to reduce people’s cost of living; and yes, policy matters. But none of it matters if you can’t put all of that in perspective. You have to tell a compelling story. Barack Obama was obviously great at that. I think your story has to be not just inspiring, but also speak to the meta frustrations people are feeling. And you have to make people see the frustrations they feel every day – frustrations I don't think are being articulated or properly put into context by folks seeking public office. So I hope whoever becomes the congressional nominee in the 7th, I think they would be remiss if they think that the best way to win is to try to basically hedge their bet and coast on natural momentum – or simply saying, “2026 should be a favorable year, so I don’t have to do much other than just be a name on the ballot.” I think the party has real brand problems that are going to persist.  … I think whoever wins the nomination in the 7th should look to my race, look to Tara’s race, look to Democrats around the country and realize that people are looking for leadership. They’re looking for folks who are genuine and authentic, who don’t look like they are kind of trying to create the most inoffensive poll-tested platform, and they’re not trying to hedge every word that comes out of their mouth to make sure that they don’t ruffle a feather or make somebody uneasy. 

What are some of the top goals that you’re hoping to tackle once you take office? 

Our top concern is taking immediate action to establish a mechanism to build more housing. I ran on the idea of a Housing Production Fund, which is a public sector-driven strategy. It's not dissimilar to how Mayor Cherelle Parker is trying to build more housing in Philadelphia. The idea is, we create a public production fund and we float a bond, and we use that money to either buy private sector multifamily housing that’s older, make it publicly operated, so we can create mixed income housing, or we go out and build the housing ourselves. One of the first things we’re looking to do is make our own local means to build thousands of units of affordable housing in our own backyard, one that is not reliant on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit or the whims of the federal government. We are trying to do something locally that is bold and decisive, and that will actually allow us to have a measurable, tangible impact. 

Another priority is strengthening access to the ballot box – we are looking to expand drop boxes, add more satellite voting offices, implement campaign finance reforms, and pass contribution limits at the local level, which I think speaks to the underlying frustration people have about politics. We are going to lead with democracy. With the midterms coming up, we want to make sure that people, in what is likely to be a very competitive and highly engaged midterm, have as many ways to cast a ballot as possible.

The third one is making sure that we are building a local network of resilience to prepare for the fallout from the OBBB – making sure that we’re responding to the paperwork requirements, that we can help our neighbors navigate those administrative burdens so they don’t get kicked off Medicaid. I think we should create some infrastructure to help folks navigate and ensure they don’t miss a form or get kicked off. We know that Medicaid administrative burdens and workforce requirements are really just a backdoor way to kick people off Medicaid. The idea is to trip people up, to hope they won’t comply, to make sure they miss a form or fail to respond to an email. We’ve got to take care of our neighbors in this environment, and so I think county government, being a social service provider, we need to make sure that we’re creating the infrastructure, partner with nonprofits to make sure that the 10,000-odd folks in Lehigh County that are in danger of losing their Medicaid don’t have that happen. Making sure that we’re working with our food banks and providing grant funding to make sure they have the resources they need to address food insecurity, making sure that we are doing our part to respond to the social destruction and the individual devastation and the fallout from the OBBB – telling the stories of the people who are going to be impacted by that, because I think it’s important to raise the stakes and talk about the consequences of that legislation. With the midterms around the corner, I think the public needs to be broadly aware of the human cost and, in my opinion, the immorality of what that legislation is going to do. 

The last thing I'm focused on is rebuilding community. With our county assets, our parks and our trails, I’m very much interested in how we can partner with municipalities and different communities to get people out of their homes and engage and create more community spaces, community events. Get people off their porches, out of their homes and off social media. I really do think local government in this era has to get people out of their silos, and we’re in the best place to rebuild that spirit of community and help people see each other as neighbors again.