Guardsman exploring run for GOP nomination to challenge Wild in 7th
Kevin Dellicker, a Heidelberg Township resident and owner of a technology consulting company, announced Thursday he’s exploring a run for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District.
Dellicker, 50, said he wanted to give Republicans a commonsense candidate in the 2022 primary when they select someone to challenge U.S. Rep. Susan Wild. While he praised many of the policies enacted by former President Donald Trump, he said Trump’s divisiveness turned people away and could have cost him the election. Republicans will need to recognize that if they want to break a string of political defeats in the Lehigh Valley, he said.
“I want to be nice. I want to be assertive. I want to be a staunch advocate for conservative values,” Dellicker said Thursday. “But I want to be respectful and I don’t want to paint all my political foes as enemies.”
Dellicker, a former economic policy adviser for Gov. Tom Ridge, is a 25-year veteran who’s served in both the Army and Air national guards. For the last 16 years, he’s run Dellicker Strategies LLC, a technology consulting firm that’s largely focused on helping school districts upgrade their broadband infrastructure. Several schools around the Lehigh Valley began to rely on the company’s services when the coronavirus pandemic made remote learning a necessity.
He criticized Wild for supporting several Democratic policies in the new year, including the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package and immigration reform. Although Wild presents herself as a moderate, her voting record doesn’t reflect it, he said.
“I think she’s lurching too far to the left to reflect the values of mainstream Lehigh Valley voters,” Dellicker said. “I think she’s going to continue to feel pressure to move left, and I think voters will remember that come Election Day.”
The 7th District includes all of Lehigh and Northampton counties and parts of Monroe County. Wild, the former solicitor of Allentown, is in her second term representing the district. It is considered a critical swing seat and both parties have vowed to commit resources to the race.
Dellicker is the only Republican to formally announce he’s considering a run for the seat, but he may not be the only candidate in the GOP primary come 2022. Lisa Scheller, the Republican standard bearer in the 2020 race, reauthorized her Scheller for Congress campaign committee in February. Scheller, a former Lehigh County commissioner who bankrolled conservative candidates in Lehigh County for years, never formally conceded following her defeat to Wild in November, and her campaign website is still accepting donations.