‘I Might Have to School Them a Little Bit’: Embattled Democratic Rep. Susan Wild Smears Conservative Constituents in Private While Publicly Embracing Moderate Views
12th August 2024
Susan Wild, the Democratic Pennsylvania congresswoman in one of the country’s tightest House races, has privately and repeatedly trashed working-class conservative voters in her district as bigots who “drank the Trump Kool-Aid.” But in public, the Pennsylvania Democrat has drastically moderated her positions on hot-button issues as she seeks reelection in her battleground district.
Earlier this year, Wild was caught on a private conference call saying she was “dismayed” that her eastern Pennsylvania district was redrawn in 2022 to include Carbon County, which she lamented had transformed from a “working class blue district” to a “red county.” And on her personal Facebook page this year, Wild smeared a military veteran constituent, suggesting the man was homophobic because he refused to shake her hand at a Memorial Day event. These were not the first times she was caught lamenting new constituents she viewed as backward and uneducated.
Wild has been on the defensive since redistricting changed the complexion of her Lehigh Valley district, adding Carbon County’s overwhelmingly white, lower-income voters to a constituency that also comprises the majority Hispanic city of Allentown. Wild has since been caught in a series of gaffes denigrating her new constituents as backward yokels she needs to “school.”