by Taya Graham | Nov 11, 2026 | Article, elections, midterms, Pennsylvania, Politics and Movements: US
In 2018, covering our first midterm election, we followed the ultimately unsuccessful campaign of an electoral upstart named Jess King.
King was a progressive candidate touting ideas like Medicare for All and a higher minimum wage in Pennsylvania’s deep-red 11th District. Her campaign seemed improbable at the time.
Her opponent, conservative Republican Lloyd Smucker, had won his previous race by roughly 10 points. In 2018, the district was gerrymandered to be even more Republican.
Despite the long odds, King made an argument we hadn’t heard before. Even though she was running as a Democrat, her pitch to voters was not exclusively partisan.
“I think what we see is that voters aren’t necessarily on the left-right spectrum as much as they are on a bottom-to-top spectrum,” King told us at a campaign event. “We need to talk more about two political parties that have sold out to special interests.”
Call it the inequality proposition or a power-to-the-people mantra, King made it clear that viewing politics through the prism of party was not only outdated, but destructive.
Ultimately, her pitch fell short. She lost to Smucker.
But the 2026 election may have proved that King was simply ahead of the curve. Alongside historic wins for Democrats, her message re-emerged with new potency among an electorate increasingly angry with the status quo, regardless of party.
“You hear people talking about this top-down message instead of this left-right message,” said Pennsylvania state Representative-elect Ce-Ce Gerlach. Gerlach won with the help of the Working Families Party and the progressive group Lehigh Valley Stands Up.
She said her message of economic populism trumped party politics.
“People are struggling. People don’t want to hear all this rhetoric
by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis | Nov 3, 2026 | Economy and Inequality, Inequality Watch, Pennsylvania, Politics and Movements: US, US Elections, video
Pennsylvania’s 7th District, the Lehigh Valley region that includes Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, is one of the most competitive House races in the country. Democrat Bob Brooks, a firefighters union president, is challenging Republican incumbent Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, and how voters here feel could help decide who controls the House. Taya Graham and Stephen Janis spent several days in the district talking to the people who will determine the outcome.
Voters say high prices, a lack of affordable housing, and a Washington disconnected from working people are driving their vote. Two more specific issues are also shaping the race: proposed data centers, which residents say are being imposed on their communities without adequate review, and the Epstein files, which arrived in Bethlehem aboard the “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile,” a traveling archive of the documents released to date. Underneath it all is a darker worry: that their votes won’t be counted.
Credits
Producers: Taya Graham and Stephen JanisWriter: Stephen JanisEditing/Post-Production: Stephen Janis
Transcript
Taya Graham: Pennsylvania’s 7th District is a diverse community stretching across the Lehigh Valley, but just before the midterm election, there is a common theme from residents that we spoke to.
Kathy: We are not liking what we see in our country.
Taya Graham: Anger and the desire for change.
Kathy: We’re not liking the effects of the things that are taking place in Washington, and therefore people are out trying to make a change.
Taya Graham: And how voters feel here could be critical to who controls the House. It is one of more than a dozen battleground districts, which is why we spent several days speaking to the people who will
by Chris Walker | Oct 6, 2026 | anti vaxxers, Department of Health and Human Services, Measles, News, Pennsylvania, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vaccinations
Pennsylvania has surpassed 1,000 measles cases this year — nearly four times the amount of cases recorded across the entire U.S. in 2024. The Keystone State has recorded 198 hospitalizations and five deaths as a result of the ongoing measles outbreak. On Monday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared an emergency order in New York, citing the rising number of measles cases in…
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by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | Sep 30, 2026 | Activism, Boston, ICE, New York City, News, Organizing, Pennsylvania, Resistance, Zohran Mamdani
The Trump administration’s abduction and deportation machine is multifaceted. There are clear-cut components — agents, shackles, and jails — and less obvious, although no less essential, ones — cars and parking spaces. In an effort to impede the attacks on immigrants, mayors of some of the country’s largest cities, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson…
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by Amy Goodman | Sep 23, 2026 | anti vaxxers, anti-vaccine, Anti-Vax, CDC, COVID, COVID-19, Interview, Measles, Pennsylvania, Public Health, RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vaccinations, Vaccine, Vaccines
2026 is already the deadliest year for measles in the United States since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000. Four people died over the last month in Pennsylvania amid an ongoing outbreak in the state, which had not seen a measles-related death in at least 35 years. All four victims, including two infants, were unvaccinated (children do not receive their first dose of the measles vaccine…
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by Audrey Carleton | Sep 16, 2026 | AI, Amazon, data centers, Josh Shapiro, News Analysis, Pennsylvania, subsidies, Tax Breaks, tax exemptions
After vowing to spend $20 billion on data centers across Pennsylvania, Amazon is now quietly reaping the rewards of a controversial, yet lucrative state tax exemption, records show. Exactly how much Pennsylvania could be forgoing from the tech behemoth is unclear, even as it expands its footprint across the state. In 2025, Amazon announced it would funnel its first investments into two data…
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