Susan Wild

Susan Ellis Wild (born June 7, 1957) is an American attorney and politician from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A Democrat, she is a member of the United States House of Representatives from . The district is located in the heart of the Lehigh Valley, and includes Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton. She spent the last two months of 2018 as the member for after Charlie Dent resigned in 2018.
Early life.
Wild is the daughter of Norman Leith and Susan Stimus Ellis. Wild's mother was a journalist. Her father served in the United States Air Force during World War II and the Korean War. She was born at Wiesbaden Air Force Base, West Germany, while her father was stationed there. She also lived in France, California, New Mexico, and Washington D.C.
Early political career.
Wild volunteered on Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign. She graduated from American University in 1978. She earned her Juris Doctor at the George Washington University Law School in 1982. She studied under John Banzhaf. Wild became a partner at the law firm Gross McGinley in 1999.
Wild ran for Lehigh County Commissioner in 2013, but lost. She was appointed the first female solicitor of Allentown, Pennsylvania in January 2015. She served as Solicitor of Allentown starting on January 7, 2015, when she was confirmed by the Allentown City Council.
U.S. House of Representatives.
Elections.
On December 31, 2017, Wild resigned from office to pursue her candidacy for the United States House of Representatives to succeed retiring Representative Charlie Dent (R) in 2018. Dent's district had previously been the 15th, represented by seven-term Republican Charlie Dent. She won the Democratic Party primary election and faced Republican Lehigh County commissioner Marty Nothstein in the November 6 general election. She defeated Nothstein in the general election with 53.4% of the vote.
On the same day, Wild also ran in a separate special election for the balance of Dent's term; he had resigned in May after announcing the previous fall that he would not run for reelection. On November 15, 2018, it was announced that Wild had won the 15th congressional district's special election, receiving 130,353 votes to Nothstein's 129,593 votes.
There was a closer margin in the special election because that election was under the former 15th district, which had been thrown out by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in February 2018. The former 15th had stretched from the Lehigh Valley into heavily Republican territory between Lebanon and Harrisburg, by way of a tendril in Berks County. The new 7th district is a more compact district centered in the Lehigh Valley, and includes a sliver of the Poconos.
Wild ran for reelection to a second term. She was unopposed in the Democratic primary and faced former Lehigh County commissioner Lisa Scheller in the general election. Wild defeated Scheller with 51.9% of the vote.
Tenure.
Upon taking office, Wild became the first Democrat to represent the Lehigh Valley since 1999. She had two months' more seniority than the rest of the large Democratic freshman class of 2018. She was one of four Democratic women elected from Pennsylvania in 2018. The others were Mary Gay Scanlon, Madeleine Dean and Chrissy Houlahan. The state's congressional delegation had previously been all male.
Wild has been critical of Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro, for holding views characterized as 'far-right', 'misogynistic', 'homophobic' and 'anti-immigrant'. In March 2019, Wild and 29 other Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; the letter read in part, "Since the election of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro as president, we have been particularly alarmed by the threat Bolsonaro’s agenda poses to the LGBTQ+ community and other minority communities, women, labor activists, and political dissidents in Brazil. We are deeply concerned that, by targeting hard-won political and social rights, Bolsonaro is endangering Brazil’s long-term democratic future."
Donald Trump impeachment.
On December 10, 2019, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee advanced two articles of impeachment against Republican President Donald Trump. On December 18, 2019, Wild voted 'Yes' on the first article of impeachment, "abuse of power", and 'Yes' on the second article of impeachment, "obstruction of Congress".
Personal life.
Wild and her husband, Russell Wild, divorced in 2003 after 22 years of marriage. They have two adult children, Clay and Adrienne. Following her divorce, Wild reunited with her law school boyfriend, Kerry Acker, who remained her life partner until his death on May 25, 2019. She lives in South Whitehall Township, west of Allentown. She is Jewish.