A second Republican candidate has announced his bid for the Lehigh Valley’s congressional seat.
Kevin Dellicker, of Heidelberg Township in Lehigh County, announced his candidacy for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District on Monday.
In a prepared statement Dellicker, who has served in the Army National Guard and Air National Guard and owns the technology services company Dellicker Strategies, cited his business and military experience and leadership, and said he would work toward “real change and solutions.”
Dellicker also previously worked as an environmental policy advisor to the New York State Senate, and as an economic policy advisor to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.
“What Washington needs is less talking heads and more leaders who will roll up their sleeves and work to bring commonsense solutions that benefit our families and communities,” Dellicker said.
He characterized himself as not being a “professional politician,” and said he was running to “protect and expand the Republican majority, get the job done, and then return home to Germansville.”
This is the second time that Dellicker has run for the 7th Congressional District and the chance to unseat incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Susan Wild.
In the 2022 Republican primary Dellicker faced off against Lisa Scheller, a former Lehigh County commissioner and CEO of Silberline Manufacturing who also challenged Wild in 2020. He narrowly lost the nomination by 2.2 percentage points, or around 1,800 votes.
Wild later beat Scheller in the general election by around 2 percentage points and is currently in her third term.
In February, Dellicker said in a release that his confidential military records were among those unlawfully released to an individual working for a research group with ties to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
According to POLITICO, an Air Force spokesperson said that 11 unapproved releases were made to the same third party, “who represented himself as a background investigator seeking service records for employment purposes.”
Dellicker is the second Republican candidate to announce their bid for the congressional seat in the current election cycle.
Maria Montero filed campaign finance information with the Federal Election Commission last week, seeking the GOP nod.
The 7th Congressional District includes all of Carbon, Lehigh, and Northampton counties, as well as part of Monroe County.
In 2022, the battle for the district’s seat was the most expensive House race in Pennsylvania, according to published reports.
Wild, who is running for reelection, already has raised a substantial amount of money to defend her incumbency.
Her reelection campaign announced Tuesday that it has raised more than $1 million since Jan. 1, 2023, including over $600,000 in the second fundraising quarter of this year.
Wild’s campaign also said it has over $827,000 in cash on hand.
(Original air-date: 7/11/23)
