Reynolds Concedes, Donchez Wins Mayor Nomination

With one broken voting machine’s contents remaining to be deciphered, J. William Reynolds called Bob Donchez Wednesday afternoon to congratulate him on winning a hard-fought Democratic primary for Bethlehem mayor.

Donchez, 63, who has served on City Council for more than 17 years, will more than likely become Bethlehem’s 12th mayor in January.

However, while no Republican ran for a mayoral nomination, a retired Moravian Academy teacher, Bruce Sigmon, told The Express Times on Wednesday that he will run as an independent in the November general election.

Councilman Reynolds’ concession came more than 18 hours after the polls closed Tuesday night.

Donchez held a slim but consistent lead as votes were tallied. However, Reynolds was reluctant to concede because a voting machine had broken in his home precinct and the totals that emerged did not seem to fit with past voting patterns, according to Councilman Michael Recchiuti, the city’s Democratic Party chairman.

The parties for both campaigns broke up early Wednesday morning with no concession from Reynolds and no claim of victory by Donchez.

Northampton County Registrar Dee Rumsey said that a voting machine in the 9th Ward, 3rd Precinct had frozen during voting on Tuesday. She said she hopes to have the information cartridge—which contains the voting information—from the broken machine read by Thursday morning.

But even if new numbers from that machine are favorable to Reynolds, it was unlikely that they would be enough to overcome the unofficial 189-vote margin that Donchez held at the close of business Wednesday.

According to unofficial vote totals released by the election bureaus of Northampton and Lehigh counties, Donchez currently tallies 2,753 votes, while Reynolds has 2,564 votes.

The broken voting machine casts some limited doubt over the outcome of the Democratic City Council primary, where Adam Waldron now holds a 70-vote lead over David “Lump” Sanders for the fourth and last party nomination.

The other party nominees are incumbents Eric Evans and Karen Dolan, and political novice Bryan Callahan, the older brother of Mayor John Callahan, who is now the Democratic nominee for Northampton County Executive.

Reynolds, 31, said he intends to work well with Donchez moving forward, despite accusations through the campaign that the more senior council member had launched a number of attack ads, implying his opponent’s lack of maturity and leadership skills.

Reynolds said he has also asked his political allies—Dolan, Recchiuti, Bryan Callahan and Waldron—to do the same.

Early Wednesday, at the Donchez victory party, the nominee’s lifelong friend, campaign chairman and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, said the negative ads were necessary for his candidate’s victory.

Historically, Morganelli said, younger candidates always beat “nice guy” older candidates in Democratic primaries. He cited his own first primary victory in 1991, when he beat a three-term incumbent at age 35.

“I like Willie,” Morganelli said. “He’s a smart guy. He’ll be council president.”