SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson will stump for Lehigh Valley congressional candidate Ryan Mackenzie at the Cetronia Ambulance Corps on Tuesday morning.
According to a news release from Mackenzie's campaign, Johnson, R-La., and Mackenzie will visit the facility in honor of EMS week.
The trip by Johnson, the most powerful Republican in Congress, is the latest reminder of the Lehigh Valley's political importance in national politics.
With both chambers of Congress narrowly divided, the two major parties are pouring resources and energy into winning battleground races across the country.
The district, which represents all of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties plus a sliver of Monroe County, has near equal numbers of registered Democrats and Republicans.
With both chambers of Congress narrowly divided, the two major parties are pouring resources and energy into winning battleground races across the country.
Incumbent Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley, narrowly won her third term in 2022, overcoming Republican challenger Lisa Scheller by less than 2 percentage points. Both parties pledged early this campaign cycle to funnel millions of dollars into Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District in their bids to control the legislative agenda in Washington.
They are already living up to their words. Through April, all candidates and their allies have spent $1.8 million in the PA-7 race, according to campaign finance reports and the political spending tracking website Open Secrets.
Mackenzie is less than a month removed from a comfortable victory in the Republican primary, defeating Air National Guard officer Kevin Dellicker and Maria Montero, a member of former Gov. Tom Corbett's administration.
Mackenzie has served for 12 years in the Pennsylvania Legislature as a state representative in Lehigh County.
