BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Next year's race for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District is expected to expand in the weeks ahead with multiple sources telling LehighValleyNews.com that a Center Valley woman will throw her hat into the ring.
Sources said Carol Obando-Derstine is expected to run as a Democrat in the 2026 race.
She previously worked for U.S. Sen. Bob Casey from 2011 to 2016 as his statewide Latino affairs adviser and as a regional director, according to Legistorm, an online database of state and federal legislative staffers.
Obando-Derstine declined to comment when reached by LehighValleyNews.com on Monday.
Obando-Derstine, a Colombian native and naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in the Lehigh Valley for more than two decades, posted on LinkedIn on Monday that she left her supervisor position at PPL on Friday to pursue new career opportunities.
She has not previously held political office but served on Pennsylvania's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs under Gov. Tom Wolf. She also helped start the Greater Philadelphia chapter of Latinas in Tech last year.
Wild bows out
Her potential entry comes as former U.S. Rep. Susan Wild confirmed she will not seek re-election next year.
Wild, Allentown's former solicitor, lost the battleground district to Republican challenger Ryan Mackenzie by about one percentage point last November. Mackenzie flipped one of the most coveted districts in the country to help Republicans maintain their slim majority in the U.S. House.
Wild previously that she had decided she would only run to reclaim her seat if she could not get behind another candidate in the race. Wild said Monday she is now ready to back someone else but declined to say who.
"It's time to move on to other chapters of my life," Wild said.
Wild spent just over six years in Congress, rising to chair of the bipartisan Ethics Committee in 2023. During her tenure, Congress capped the cost of insulin for Medicare recipients, a longtime pet issue for her. In her final months in office, she led efforts to protect in vitro fertilization and other reproduction assistance procedures.
The South Whitehall Township resident made international headlines when journalists photographed her during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on Congress. As Capitol Police attempted to secure the U.S. House chamber from a mob of Donald Trump supporters, cameras captured U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., comforting a panicked Wild.
Wild was still undecided about her political future when Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure launched his own campaign for PA-7 in February.
McClure, a Bethlehem Township Democrat who grew up in Carbon County, has been a dominant force in county politics for decades. He's enjoyed strong support from the region's labor unions while weathering criticisms about problematic voting machines during his tenure as executive.
McClure and Mackenzie are the only two PA-7 candidates who have formally filed their campaigns with the Federal Election Commission.
The district has been one of the most competitive in the country since the Pennsylvania Supreme Court redrew Pennsylvania's congressional map after ruling the previous one was gerrymandered to favor Republicans. PA-7's current boundaries include all of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties plus a sliver of Monroe County.
The district's toss-up nature — plus the narrow margins in the U.S. House since 2020 — has made the region one of the most watched political battlegrounds in America.
The parties have pumped tens of millions of dollars into the race recent years and sent high-profile VIPs in a bid to persuade voters.
Presidents Trump and Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Reps. Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., all made appearances in the Valley last year.
