Democrats in the Lehigh Valley are crying foul over a Green Party candidate’s attempt to get on the November ballot in the race for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District.
Bob Brooks’ campaign is accusing Republicans of trying to get Andrew Tupone—who ran as a Republican for a Northampton County magistrate judge seat in 2015 and was registered as a Republican as recently as 2025—on the ballot as a third-party candidate to spoil Brooks’ chances of defeating Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Lehigh) in the fall.
“It is clear that Republicans and their corporate donors are scared of Bob Brooks because they don’t want a working class Pennsylvanian in the halls of Congress, and they know they can’t beat him fair and square after voting to unleash higher prices on Lehigh Valley families,” Jenna Kauffman, Brooks’ campaign manager, said in a statement last Thursday.
“Voters deserve to know who is paying for this effort and whether Ryan Mackenzie and his Republican backers are involved.”
Tupone’s nominating petitions filed with the Pennsylvania Department of State revealed that one of his circulators was Colin McEvers, an out-of-state resident who attends Salisbury University in Maryland.
McEvers worked for Department of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s failed presidential campaign and operates a Facebook group called “Maryland White Republican Council.”
Recently he organized an event titled “Can the American Race Problem Be Solved?” with white supremacist Jared Taylor.
“It’s really a free speech event, and it’s all about open dialogue. Of course, I also think it’s important to advocate for people that are white,” McEvers said in an interview with WBOC in March after the event was postponed.
The event sparked so much controversy it caused Maryland Republican Party Chair Nicole Beus Harris to condemn it.
Taylor is a well known figure among extremist circles and is credited with helping give rise to the alt-right—a white supremacist movement. Following the white nationalist demonstrations that rocked Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, he blamed the violence on counterprotestors, an argument echoed by President Donald Trump days later.
McEvers didn’t respond to a request for comment.
