Mackenzie Touts Commonsense Policies in Re-Election Bid

Despite being in the crosshairs of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee with potential Democratic challengers galore, first-term Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie was confident.

In a recent interview with RealClearPennsylvania, Mackenzie, who represents the Lehigh Valley-centered 7th congressional district, was confident that he’s delivering on his campaign promises.

“I ran in 2024 focused on cost-of-living issues and for working families, seniors, and others,” said Mackenzie. “They had been ravaged by Bidenomics and inflation that compounded over four years and simply made life unsustainable and so expensive for so many people. So the first thing, when I took office, was I introduced a package of bills: the Working Families Tax Package.”

While not all of his proposals passed, Mackenzie noted, “thankfully, I was able to get the expansion of the child tax credit included in reconciliation, so that will now be at $2,200 per child, and it’s permanent. And it will go up with inflation over time.”

“Anybody that’s trying to raise a family nowadays knows how expensive everything is,” said Mackenzie. “So, we were able to include that and a lot of other positives in the tax reconciliation bill, expanding the deduction for seniors and giving an exemption for tipped workers and overtime workers, and even just expanding the standard deduction for every single filer.”

People will start noticing it when they do their taxes, he noted.

Mackenzie, who also served for 12 years in the Pennsylvania state House, said much of his work is done in committees and caucuses. He’s on the Education and Workforce Committee and chair of its Subcommittee for Workforce Protections.

“And that’s important because the other side of cost of living is … making sure people have good jobs and good wages.”

He’s also on the Homeland Security Committee.

“Obviously, border security was a hot topic on the campaign trail,” Mackenzie said. “And then the third (committee) is Foreign Affairs, because we have a very ethnically diverse community in the Lehigh Valley and lots of different communities from all over the world who still have strong family connections to their home countries.”

One is to strengthen e-Verify, a tool to vet the legal status of job seekers. Currently, it’s voluntary, “but I have legislation that would make it mandatory for the federal government to use it for all their contractors and subcontractors” over $150,000.

“It’s very important because if we want to protect American jobs and maintain American wages, which get suppressed when they have to compete against illegal labor competing against them, this is a great step in the right direction,” said Mackenzie.

That bill passed out of committee, and he hopes there will be a floor vote soon.

He called it a “commonsense measure,” however, it passed the Judiciary Committee without any Democratic support.

“We’ve seen the polarization in the immigration space, even when it’s things that are very commonsense,” he said.

Asked about being targeted by the DCCC, Mackenzie noted that he’d defeated an incumbent Democrat, Susan Wild, who “came in in 2018 in a blue wave year, and it was an open seat. Charlie Dent (R) had stepped down from Congress.”

Wild was “very far left, very out of touch with our district. She made some very disparaging comments.”

“At the same time, it’s very hard to defeat an incumbent. We all know that,” said Mackenzie.

 A conservative advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, halted grassroots efforts in Mackenzie's district over his bipartisan vote to continue subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.

“Affordability is one of the top issues that people are focused on in our local community.” Their main concerns are food and fuel, housing and healthcare, Mackenzie said.

“This was an issue about healthcare affordability, tax credits that help bring down the cost of healthcare for millions of Americans,” Mackenzie said. Healthcare costs have risen sharply, and “we have this opportunity to actually do something to extend those tax credits and pair it with long-term reforms.”

Since House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies “wanted to play politics,” it narrowed the legislative choices to “that discharge petition.”

“That package, a three-year clean extension, had already been voted down in the Senate … But if you wanted that conversation to continue and potentially come to a compromise outcome, that could bring down the cost of healthcare for everybody, you had to vote that discharge out.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, “a conservative member from Ohio, has taken up the charge of trying to negotiate a compromise … He’s trying to get buy-in from 35 Republicans, at least, and Democrats, as well, to get to 60 votes,” he added.

“Congressman Mackenzie's reelection bid will certainly require him to navigate a challenging electoral environment,” said Muhlenberg College Political Science Professor Christopher Borick. “Midterms are challenging to the president's party, especially when the president is dealing with high levels of disapproval ratings. 

“Historically, the most vulnerable representatives are first-term members who won narrowly in the previous cycle,” said Borick, noting that these factors could make Mackenzie’s reelection a challenge. “He certainly needs to maintain the support of the president, but if he is seen as too close to Trump and the election is largely a referendum on the president, the connection will likely drag him down. 

“Thus, he has to find some space from the president and his party, and the issue of health insurance subsidies seemed like a reasonable place for him to break,” said Borick. 

Mackenzie is also laser-focused on constituent services. He opened four offices and offers service in English or Spanish. “We have handled more than 120,000 inquiries and letters about policy,” he said. “When it comes specifically to casework, we have resolved 5,500 cases.”

Some people came to a press conference he held and said they had gone to Wild’s office and weren’t helped but Mackenzie helped them. Constituents’ issues included IRS refunds owed, missing tax credits, and healthcare issues.

“There was one gentleman who was owed a Bronze Star for his father from World War II that we were able to get him,” said Mackenzie. “Story after story.” A woman needed a visa to come from Germany for a job. Another woman had a passport issue. “She was going to have to miss a trip,” he said. “We were able to resolve that in 24 hours.”

“So, all kinds of issues that we’ve been able to deal with and over $10 million that we have been able to get back for constituents in our community,” Mackenzie said.

Meanwhile, Democrats are lining up to challenge Mackenzie. The list includes Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley; Bob Brooks, a firefighter and president of the Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters Association; Lewis Shupe; Carol Obando-Derstine, a former utility company executive; Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor; Aidan Gonzalez; and former Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure.

Whoever wins the Democratic primary will compete in a swing district, which includes Northampton, a Trump-Biden-Trump county.

As Reilly Richardson, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, views it, “Voters across the political spectrum support Mackenzie’s commonsense agenda, which is why he’ll win reelection this year.”

Time will tell how this district, home to blue cities and MAGA towns, will decide the congressional outcome in November.