Get To Know Anna Thomas's District
Anna Thomas is running to represent the newly drawn Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 13. Who lives in this district and why is it so important? This district encompasses part of the Lehigh Valley including Anna’s hometown of Bethlehem Township. Anna’s opponent handily won every one of his races until 2022, when the district was redrawn. For the first time ever, Joe Emrick won by only a very narrow lead. Now this district is more urban and much more of a swing district—and, if Anna wins, she’ll help form a Democratic majority in the state house.
To start with a bit of history, District 137 is located in the former industrial heart of Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania’s third largest metropolitan area. The district encompasses part of Northampton County which in the 20th century was home to some of the nation’s largest heavy industry firms, including what was then the world’s largest cement company and the second largest producer of steel in the country, Bethlehem Steel. Once Bethlehem Steel started to reduce and eventually close operations in the 1980s, the entire Lehigh Valley region faced an economic downturn until now. As of 2021, the region is one of the state’s largest and fastest growing economies with a GDP of $50.960 billion. The remarkable growth has come from newfound industry sectors including finance, manufacturing, health care, education, and information. Starting in the 2000s, the region has also emerged as an important logistics hub and the number of warehouses has exploded. Any politician would love to represent an area that has a growing population and thriving businesses.
Thanks to the 2020 census, which showed broad demographic shifts within the area, District 137 was redrawn. Republicans initially rejected the redrawn map, claiming that it favored Democrats, but a bipartisan state commission and the state’s supreme court agreed to uphold the map. District 137 grew a lot smaller, a lot more urban, and a lot more liberal.
Image: Balletopedia
The demographics of the district are mostly white and registered voters are almost evenly split among Democrats and Republicans with Democrats holding a slight majority. This majority is clearly visible in the last few state house election results: in 2012, Anna’s current opponent handily won his seat by 61.4% of the vote and continued to win around that proportion of votes until 2022, the year the district was redrawn. Suddenly his lead wasn’t so comfortable. In his first match against Anna, he only won 51% of the vote, beating her by a mere 750 votes. No wonder Republicans were running scared in 2022–they knew that these new maps would actually be fair and actually be representative of Pennsylvanian voters’ values.
Additionally, according to Bethlehem’s Census Data, the city, and by extension, the district has become much more diverse and is home to more immigrants than in the past decade. In 2010, self-identified white people made up about 83% of the city’s population and now only make up about 70%. The influx of immigrants has been steady throughout the decade–in 2010 only 6.3% of residents identified themselves as foreign born; in 2020 that number practically doubled to 12.7%. This data seems to fit with the economic growth the entire region has been experiencing and Anna’s talking point at our trivia night in July that the district is 40% people of color. More people are moving into the district, starting families, and starting businesses. These people are also more likely to vote for a Democrat and this year they have a great choice in Anna Thomas.
Back to the present. Iin 2024, we’re on for a rematch between Anna and her opponent. As the demographics of Northampton County and District 137 trend liberal, it’s of utmost importance to make sure that Anna wins–and wins by much more than 750 votes. Should Anna win this race, she will help to increase the Democrats’s current razor-thin majority of one in the State House. At 31 years old, Anna would also be the youngest woman member of the State House and can accurately represent the hopes, dreams, and desires of her constituents.