Wild overtakes Nothstein to win 15th District Congressional race

For a while, it appeared as if Democratic Allentown Attorney Susan Wild and Republican Lehigh County Commissioners’ Chair Marty Nothstein might both go to Washington.

Wild handily won the newly configured 7th Congressional District race, but Nothstein held a slim lead in the concurrent 15th Congressional District contest after election night tallies were counted.

When all of the absentee and provisional ballots were counted during the past nine days, however, Wild overtook him to win by about 750 votes. She will serve the unexpired term of Republican moderate Charlie Dent, who resigned in May.

Wild, who is in Washington for orientation seminars, expects to be sworn in after the Thanksgiving break on Nov. 27. She will serve as the 15th District’s member of Congress until Jan. 3, when she will be sworn in again to serve a two-year term as the 7th District’s representative.

The current 15th District includes all of Lehigh and parts of Northampton, Berks, Lebanon and Dauphin counties. The new 7th District includes all of Lehigh and Northampton counties and Eldred and Ross townships in Monroe counties.

Nothstein will keep his position as county commissioner. He joined with his five Republican colleagues on the board earlier this week to override the budget veto of County Executive Phillips Armstrong.

Armstrong had proposed a 4.1 percent real estate tax increase, but the nine-member board voted 6-3 to adopt the budget with no tax increase. Armstrong said the increase is needed to fund needed county initiatives and to prevent a much larger hike in 2020.

With the tax rate remaining at 3.64 mills, it means an owner of property with a median value of $200,000 will continue to pay $680 in annual county real estate taxes.