One of our PA jackals, Wolvesvalley, has made the case for Susan Wild (PA-07) to be added to our Winnable House Races in Purple Districts thermometer. Unless you customize the amounts, donations to that thermometer will be split 5 ways:
Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Sharice Davids (KS-03)
Gabe Vasquez (NM-02)
Elaine Luria (VA-02)
Susan Wild (PA-07)
Winnable House Races Purple Districts
Susan Wild – who is running in PA-07 – has won three elections so far: a special election to replace Charlie Dent in 2018; then two general elections in 2018 and 2020. Her Republican opponent in 2020 was Lisa Scheller; 2022 is a rematch.
In the 2020 general election, Wild beat Scheller 195,475 to 181,407. In the 2022 primary, Wild received 62,330 votes. Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so (a) non-Democrats couldn’t vote for her and (b) she was unopposed, so it’s possible that many voters didn’t bother to vote in that race. Total votes cast on the Republican side were 66,711, split between Lisa Scheller (the winner) and Dean Browning (who was simultaneously running in the state Senate primary and won there).
I think if Democrats turn out she can win. My impression is that Wild has been stepping up the attack-ad spending; here is a local story about a pretty good one which I have seen on TV.
The district has been redrawn for 2022 to include more conservative territory, which is why this is now considered a toss-up. Otherwise, this would likely be lean Democratic.
Here is a rating chart from Ballotpedia. Cook rates the district “lean Republican”; two other sites list it as “toss-up.”
Links from that chart:
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales
Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball
The Ballotpedia site has this table of campaign finances from the June 30, 2022 report. I haven’t seen any later financial figures.
Winnable House Races in Purple Districts (PA-07 Added)Post + Comments (19)