This Lehigh Valley congressional race is overshadowed by the presidential election but could determine who controls the House

EASTON, Pa. — A pickup truck sat idling at an intersection last week, the seven Trump flags anchored into its cargo bed snapping and rustling in a late-summer breeze.

As though in search of an inaugural parade to lead, the driver finally nudged his truck slowly past innumerable “Trump 2024″ lawn signs on the block.

Few, if any, placards proclaimed the candidacies of Democratic U.S. Rep. Susan Wild or her challenger, Republican State Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, vying for Wild’s seat in the Lehigh Valley’s 7th Congressional District.

“Who’s running for Congress again?” asked Star Pagan, 35, outside the Golden Gate Diner in Allentown before breakfast on Tuesday. She does hair and is a childcare worker in the city, the most populous in the valley with 125,000 residents. “Usually, I just follow presidential candidates.”

Tyler Pacchioli, 23, a substitute teacher in Easton, was similarly perplexed. “I’m not up to date on any congressional race,” he said, hustling out of a Starbucks. “But I’ll probably just vote Democrat. That’s what I usually do.”

Unmindful of any political contest beyond the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, few people interviewed in Allentown, Easton, and Bethlehem last week could name the people running for Congress in their area.

The Lehigh Valley is politically divided and has long been critical territory in presidential contests — Northampton County is one of only two counties in the state that swung from former President Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 to President Joe Biden in 2020.

Yet the stakes also couldn’t be higher in what has become a competitive, nationally consequential race that could help decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the next two years.

Wild is a centrist Democratic three-term incumbent who won her 2022 reelection bid by 2 percentage points, and is running on a platform supporting reproductive rights as well as workers’ rights.

Mackenzie, a right-wing Republican who represents parts of Lehigh County in Harrisburg and who asked Congress not to certify the 2020 presidential election results, is emphasizing discontent with inflation and problems at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“It’s absolutely one of the most important races in the country,” said Stephen Medvic, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. “And the way it looks now, it’s a toss-up.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee calls Wild’s seat “vulnerable.” The National Republican Congressional Campaign views it as one of the 37 nationwide that Republicans are targeting to flip.

The Lehigh Valley was, long ago, Pennsylvania steel country, its legacy evident in the fossilized behemoths that once were economy-stoking mills still pockmarking the region.

The 7th Congressional District includes Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon Counties, as well as a small portion of southwestern Monroe County.

When they explain their backgrounds as they campaign, both candidates stress their strong connections to the Lehigh Valley.

Wild, 67, grew up overseas, the daughter of a journalist and a career Air Force officer. She settled in the Lehigh Valley 30 years ago and was first elected to Congress in 2018. She lives in South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County.

Mackenzie, 42, traces his lineage in the region back nine generations to when his ancestors joined the Northampton County Militia to fight in the Revolutionary War. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2012, and he lives in Lower Macungie Township, Lehigh County.

Stumping in 2022 on reproductive rights “carried Wild’s campaign,” according to Chris Borick, professor of political science and director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. She has also championed the issue of mental health, and has publicly spoken about the loss of her longtime partner to suicide in May 2019 as an impetus for her advocacy for suicide prevention.

On other issues, Wild has sided with Biden on lowering prescription drug prices, expanding Medicare, supporting labor and education, and addressing the climate crisis. She has introduced a bill to codify the right to in vitro fertilization nationwide. She was also reportedly one of the first members of Congress to suggest in private Democratic meetings that Biden drop out of the presidential race after a poor debate performance against Trump in June.

For Mackenzie, who has an MBA from Harvard Business School, wasteful government spending has been a prime issue, as has “crippling” inflation, as well as border security. He sees himself as “bipartisan and mainstream,” having reached across the aisle on efforts to support first responders and improve health care, according to Arnaud Armstrong, communications director for Mackenzie’s campaign.

Out on the stump, Mackenzie “makes Wild out to be a leftist radical” for supporting the Biden agenda, though she’s a proven centrist, Borick said. Besides, he added, “in the Lehigh Valley, it’s hard for a candidate to go hard left and survive.”

It’s Mackenzie who’s a true “cookie-cutter extreme candidate,” according to Natalie Gould, Wild’s communications director. “He’s rejected the 2020 election results and told Pennsylvania not to certify that election.”

Armstrong criticized Wild for denigrating her own constituents, saying in an undated teleconference she was “dismayed” that red Carbon County, populated with people who “drank the Trump Kool-Aid,” had been added to her district following the 2020 Census. Wild apologized in February for those remarks.

In her 2022 win over Republican Lisa Scheller, Wild took Northampton County by 51.5% to 48.5%, and Lehigh County, 54.2% to 45.8%. She lost heavily Republican Carbon County, 64.7% to 35.3%, and was defeated by a 2-1 ratio in the Republican-leaning sliver of Monroe County that’s part of her district, 66.8% to 33.2%.

The fight could be even closer this time around, which is why campaign money is pouring in from both sides.

Wild has had a fundraising edge, taking in $1.53 million between April 4 and June 30. Mackenzie accumulated $405,000 during the same period. In 2022, Democrats and Republicans together spent $34.5 million on the Wild-Scheller race, making it one of the most expensive in the nation that year.

“Wild has been a very strong fundraiser,” Borick said. “And while Mackenzie’s funding isn’t matching hers, he’s a well-seasoned candidate who’s receiving strong support from the Republican Party.

“It has all the makings of a hard-fought race.”

Ultimately, said Franklin and Marshall pollster Berwood Yost, in order to win, Wild should “tie Mackenzie to Trump and dissatisfaction with him every chance she gets.”

For Mackenzie, the key to victory is to “constantly harp on people’s dissatisfaction about the economy.”

That’s the kind of approach that keeps voters’ attention, said Yost — “even if they aren’t clear on who’s running.”