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On this special series of the Lehigh Valley with Love Podcast, we sat down with candidates running for U.S. House in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District ahead of the May 19, 2026 primary.

To keep this fair and useful, every candidate was asked the same core questions. Mark Pinsley is not included because he dropped out. We also reached out multiple times to Congressman Ryan McKenzie’s office and did not receive a response.

In this episode, we speak with Lewis Shupe of Allentown.

Campaign: https://realchange.us/

Why he is running and his first term goal
Shupe says a key goal is to harness the power of registered voters to help compose and promote legislative initiatives led by citizens.

Day to day financial stress
Shupe points to food insecurity and says demand at food banks is rising, including among working people. He argues wages and cost of living are pushing more households toward needing help with basics.

Healthcare and ACA premium tax credits
Asked about extending the ACA premium tax credits and making them permanent, Shupe focuses on restoring Medicare cuts he says were made in a major federal bill, and he says he would go further by supporting Medicare for All.

Immigration enforcement, legal pathways, and work authorization
Shupe argues that people already in the country should have a legal pathway to citizenship and says families should not be separated. He also claims recent border politics are being misrepresented and frames the issue as needing less drama and more workable solutions.

Warehouses and data centers
Shupe responds to the region becoming “the land of warehouses” and data centers by describing tradeoffs. He says there are pluses and minuses to data centers and references a proposed facility in the western part of the region. His emphasis is on weighing local impacts rather than treating these projects as automatically good.

Homelessness
Asked what the federal government can do about local homelessness, Shupe connects the issue to limited income and the gap between assistance and real costs. He references his own experience going on Social Security due to health issues and says that being on a limited income is not enough.

Third place in the Lehigh Valley
When asked where he likes to spend time outside of work and home, Shupe points to Make Lehigh Valley! a “workshop for people who love to tinker.” Their members include engineers, woodworkers, programmers, artists, amateur radio enthusiasts, radio-controlled airplane flyers, and more. Check out their website https://makelehighvalley.com/