Quite a few political observers were surprised when Democratic Northampton County District Attorney Terry Houck announced he was quitting his quest for re-election in this November’s General Election.

My reaction was: What took him so long?

You don’t have to be a political Einstein to figure out that his re-election bid was going nowhere after he lost the Democratic primary on May 16 to former county Judge Stephen Baratta.

The only reason Houck was still in contention is because he received the greatest amount of Republican write-in votes, and since there were no regular ballot Republicans running, he won the Republican line for the office.

Anytime a person’s party rejects him, and he decides to stick with it because he somehow manages to get the opposing party’s largest number of write-in votes, maybe you can call it a moral victory, but you need to pack away your campaign posters and paraphernalia and call it a day.

As if this analysis were not direct enough, the chair of the county Republican Party, Glenn Geissinger, said immediately after the election that the party was in no way going to support a Democrat’s candidacy on the GOP ballot.

At that point, we must ask ourselves: “What the heck was Houck thinking” in continuing his campaign for nearly three more months before calling it quits? As the Italian philosopher Machiavelli suggested: Politics is about power, and those who have it are sometimes reluctant to give it up and, in some cases, will use any means to keep it.

Among those who expressed surprise was Baratta, who told the news media that there is still an election coming up, and he takes nothing for granted. While this may be the politically savvy thing to say, anyone knows that unless Baratta shoots himself in the foot by doing something incredibly stupid, he is going to be the county’s next DA.

Houck indicated that after reassessing the expense of continuing what was at best an uphill race since he was running without party support, and considering the impact on his family, withdrawing was the best decision at this point.

During what was arguably the most highly visible contest in this year’s primaries, Baratta was brutal in his criticism of the way Houck is running the office since taking office in early 2021. Houck, who was an assistant district attorney under DA John Morganelli, now a county judge, had enormously big shoes to fill.

Baratta retired as a county judge at the end of 2022 and hinted at a possible run for the DA’s office. He couldn’t say definitely while he was still on the bench because of the restrictions of judicial canons, but 10 days after his retirement became official, he announced his bid for the DA’s job, so, obviously, he had already made up his mind before he retired.

According to some of my sources, although Houck, a native of Philadelphia, had been an assistant county district attorney starting in 2006 after serving as an assistant DA in Bucks County, he was still considered by some voters as an “outsider” next to Baratta, a native of Bangor and lifelong resident of the county.

Baratta hammered home this point during the primary campaign. For example, his campaign information said, “Baratta was born here, raised here and raised a family here. He understands the growing impact of crime, gun violence and the opioid crisis in our community.”

The Northampton County DA makes $211,495 annually, which by way of comparison is not far behind that of Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who started his term in January at nearly $230,000.

By BRUCE FRASSINELLI|tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.