Susan Wild: Why I’m Running for Congress

“I have taken a pledge not to accept any corporate tax money. One of the first and most important reasons I took that pledge is because I think that the influence of ‘Big Pharma’ is far too great in our legislative body in Washington.”

Susan Wild, the Democratic candidate for Congress for Pennsylvania’s 7th District, joins Merion West’s Erich Prince to discuss her candidacy and what she plans to prioritize if elected in November.

Can you talk a bit about that moment you decided you wanted to enter the political realm and run for Congress in 2018?

I got into this race in October of 2017. When I got in, it was really a matter of evaluating the political landscape and who I thought might be likely to step into the race once Charlie Dent accounted he was not going to run for re-election. I came to the conclusion that it was incredibly important for me to step up to the plate. I will tell you that my initial motivating was the fact that I am the mother of two kids, who are no longer kids but they’ll always be my kids, in their mid-twenties. They are part of a generation of people who are going to, in all likelihood, be worse off than their parents were, which is unprecedented in this country. I am incredibly concerned about their generation and the generations to follow and the world that we are leaving for them. That was my initial motivating factor.

Soon after I made the decision to get in, I really started to look at and hear from people across the 7th district, across the Leigh valley area. What I really focused on was that working families—and the way I define people working families are people that depend on paycheck in order to get by—not people with inheritance and wealth have been left behind by the current government in Washington. I felt that I could take the skills that I have developed over 30 plus years of being an attorney. I have advocated for people my entire working life, and I felt that it was important for me to step-in and start doing the things that needed to be done. Those were my initial motivations.