Allentown and Bethlehem’s normally sleepy local election races are seeing tens of thousands of dollars poured in from outside groups seeking to influence which candidates voters will choose in the May 20 primary.
While some of these groups have campaign finance disclosures that list the donors behind the ads, at least one is a so-called “dark money” group that is not required to disclose its donors.
“We are seeing this happen more,” said Muhlenberg College political science professor Chris Borick, referring to outside spending on local races. “There is some empirical evidence it seems, outside interest in hyperlocal races is on the rise.”
Borick said the outside spending is part of a political phenomena called the nationalization of local politics — or the idea that national topics and concerns are taking a bigger role in the world of local politics. That, combined with lax campaign finance regulations on the federal and state level, have paved the way for outside groups to spend money in an attempt to influence local election outcomes.
Here is what we know about the various outside groups that are seeking to influence the local races.
Civic Growth Initiative
The Civic Growth Initiative is a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt nonprofit, which are sometimes referred to as “dark money” groups, because these types of nonprofits can engage in political advocacy but are not required to disclose their donors. According to a 2024 letter on the IRS website, the Civic Growth Initiative was granted tax-exempt nonprofit status in May 2024. The letter is addressed to Charles Thiel, a former mayoral candidate and Allentown School Board member. Thiel did not return a voicemail requesting comment from The Morning Call.
The group has sent mailers in support of Allentown City Council candidates Jeremy Binder, managing director of consulting business Concentric Solutions, and Cristian Pungo, a construction engineer for Alvin H. Butz Construction. The initiative has also pushed out a digital ad and mailer criticizing Natalie Santos, a progressive City Council member, for her support of an unsuccessful proposal that would have created a $4 million program to send social workers instead of police to mental health-oriented police calls.
The ad said Santos “jeopardized community safety” and that the plan would have “stripped $4 million from policing in Allentown.” However the bill orders that the program would exist as part of the city health bureau, not the police department, and does not explicitly say where the city would find the funding for it. The ad also criticizes Santos for her absence from 11 meetings last year.
Both Pungo and Binder said they had no knowledge of or coordination with the Civic Growth Initiative’s endorsement. Pungo said that he is “upset” to be associated with a group that is sending out attack mailers.
“I’ve been adamant about running a clean campaign that doesn’t disparage my opponents,” Pungo said in a phone interview. “I’ve made it a point to talk to every one of my opponents and make it clear I have no ill will toward them, and then to be associated with a group that is going out of their way to negatively attack these candidates, it’s disheartening.”
Pungo said he does not know Thiel. Binder said he has known Thiel “for several years in several different contexts, but this is not one of them.”
“I did not know any of these mailers were coming out until I received one in my mailbox,” Binder said.
The Civic Growth Initiative’s website says the group “fosters civic engagement and sustainable growth by informing voters, influencing local policies, and empowering residents to shape their community’s future.”
A group of progressive local officials and advocates at a news conference Wednesday criticized the initiative and other outside groups attacking progressive candidates as a “coordinated, dark-money political attack” against Santos.
“If you don’t know where the money is coming from, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the definition of dark money in politics,” David Harrington, an Allentown immigration attorney, said.
“The big money interests want to buy the election,” he said. “They think that the voices of the people shouldn’t matter, it should be whoever has the most money.”
PA Local Leaders Fund
The PA Local Leaders Fund is a statewide political action committee established by Allentown immigration lawyer and prolific local political donor Raymond Lahoud.
That group has sent mailers attacking Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds and City Council member Hillary Kwiatek, both of whom are running for reelection. An anti-Reynolds mailer lists the years in which Reynolds — who served on City Council starting in 2007 before being elected mayor in 2021 — voted for an increase in taxes and other city fees.
The anti-Kwiatek mailer criticizes her for voting in favor of a tax increase in 2024 and an increase in pay for City Council members starting in 2026. Prior to that vote this year, City Council members’ pay had remained the same since 2009.
A campaign finance report for the PA Local leaders Fund, filed May 9, revealed that Lahoud, who also serves as the group’s treasurer, contributed $25,000 — the largest individual contribution to the PAC.
Lahoud is a mega-donor who has contributed to both Democrats and Republicans, according to data on OpenSecrets. He entirely self-funded a super PAC named the Pennsylvania Lawyers Fund in 2022 that contributed $2.5 million to both Republican and Democratic candidates who are lawyers, including former U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, Vice President JD Vance during his run for Ohio Senate in 2022 and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, according to OpenSecrets. Lahoud is a Republican.
Lahoud disputed the idea that his groups fall under the umbrella of “dark money” because he discloses donors via public campaign finance records.
“We’ve always filed campaign finance reports to disclose, so it’s not quote unquote ‘dark money’ like people make it out to be, and quite frankly I’m just a moderate across the board, and I know and the Lehigh Valley is really a moderate area, so there’s no crazy,” Lahoud said. “I don’t want to use the word crazy, but there isn’t some underlying agenda.
“If people have issues with it, I respect them, but they should probably go and speak to their members of Congress directly, and have Congress or the state Legislature enact legislation that could potentially limit Citizens United,” Lahoud said.
Citizens United is the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that paved the way for political committees to raise and spend unlimited amounts to influence elections.
Other donors to the PA Local Leaders Fund include Bethlehem City Council member Bryan Callahan, who gave $7,000 to the PAC via both his own campaign committee and his personal funds, and Bruce Haines, owner of Hotel Bethlehem, who gave $3,000.
The PAC’s only expenditures so far are the two mailers attacking Kwiatek and Reynolds, which cost around $12,500. The PAC still has $22,825 left in the bank.
The Bethlehem City Democratic Committee criticized Callahan, a Democrat, for contributing to an organization that is attacking fellow Democrats in a Facebook post Wednesday.
“These donations are public. And they raise a simple question: what kind of Democrat uses Republican money to attack fellow Democrats? The answer: not one “who reflects our values,” The city’s Democratic Committee wrote on Facebook.
Callahan dismissed that criticism and said he has a right to support the candidates of his choosing in the primary.
“I am not letting them try to push me into a corner, that I can’t support a candidate, a good Democratic candidate, that doesn’t fit their far-left opinion,” Callahan said.
Allentown Citizens Alliance
The Allentown Citizens Alliance, a super PAC that dates to early May and is also connected to Lahoud, has promoted digital ads that attack both a progressive slate of City Council candidates as well as a conservative Democratic mayoral challenger. Independent expenditure reports reveal that the Allentown Citizens Alliance has spent $36,912 opposing the progressive City Council slate.
That group has paid for Facebook ads that criticize a slate of Allentown Council candidates endorsed by the progressive Working Families Party. That slate includes Santos, Patrick Palmer and Ben Stemrich.
The ads claim the three candidates would turn Allentown into a “lawless city,” that they would raise taxes — which is not a part of the candidates’ public platforms — and that the candidates “don’t care about you.”
The Alliance also ran a Facebook ad critical of Ed Zucal, a conservative Democrat who is challenging Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk. The group linked to a Morning Call article about Zucal’s write-in campaign for the Republican nomination for mayor, and wrote “Ed Zucal is a man with no integrity. He tells one group he is a Democrat, while telling others he is running as a Republican.”
The group has not filed a public report disclosing its donors. Lahoud told The Morning Call he is the group’s sole donor.