- Rep. Susan Wild faced off against Republican Lisa Scheller in Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District.
- The 7th District is based in the Lehigh Valley and includes GOP stronghold Carbon County.
Democratic Rep. Susan Wild defeated Republican Lisa Scheller in a rematch to represent Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District.
Polls closed in the state at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
2022 General EmbedsPennsylvania's 7th Congressional District candidates
Wild is a member of the House committees on Ethics and Foreign Affairs. Prior to her time in Congress, she worked as an attorney and in 2015 became the first woman to be appointed solicitor of Allentown, Pennsylvania. In November 2018, she was elected as the first woman to represent the 7th Congressional District. Wild narrowly defeated Scheller in 2020 — by 3.8 percentage points.
Wild is an outspoken advocate of lowering the cost of prescription drugs, as well as mental health awareness and suicide prevention. She ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.
Scheller, Wild's challenger, is the chief executive officer of a paint manufacturing company, an engineer, and owner of a nonprofit coffee shop. She narrowly defeated her GOP primary opponent Kevin Dellicker, securing 51.3% of the vote to his 48.7%.
Scheller was added to the National Republican Congressional Committee's Young Guns program in the campaign arm's third round of selections.
Voting history for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District
Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District is based in the Lehigh Valley and includes Carbon County, where Republicans hold a 6,000-voter lead in voter registration, and GOP candidates have won the county in most key races since 2010.
President Joe Biden had a 5 percentage point margin of victory over President Donald Trump under the district's previous boundaries in 2020 before it was redrawn to take in Carbon County in redistricting following the 2020 Census, making the district slightly more favorable to Republicans.
The money race
According to OpenSecrets, Wild has raised $6.3 million, spent about $5.5 million, and has about $921,000 on hand, as of October 19. Her opponent, Scheller, has raised about $4.8 million, spent more than $4.5 million, and has $320,000 cash on hand.
As of late October, more than a dozen super PACs, national party committees, politically active nonprofits, and other non-candidate groups have together spent more than $13.5 million to advocate for or against candidates in this race, including during the race's primary phase. Such spending is on the higher end among all House races in 2022, with pro-Republican super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund alone accounting for almost half of this spending.
What experts say
The race between Wild and Scheller is rated as a "toss-up" by Inside Elections, a "toss-up" by The Cook Political Report, and a "toss-up" by Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.