Susan Ellis Wild, incumbent Democrat representing the 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, claimed victory over Republican Lisa Scheller Thursday night after vote totals showed she has a 10,000-plus lead in the race.

The district includes parts of Lehigh, Monroe and Northampton counties.

As of this morning, Wild holds a lead of 185,964 to 175,385 over Scheller, who is the owner of the Silberline Manufacturing Company, Hometown.

In a statement released by Zoom, Wild called serving in the Congress “the greatest honor in my life,” noting she “is honored” to have won the race for a second two-year term. In 2018, she defeated Republican Marty Nothstein to win her first term.

Wild praised the efforts of election officials and workers in making sure all of the votes are being counted, saying they did “an outstanding job.” She noted although there are additional ballots to count, she believes the 10,000-plus advantage she has over Scheller verifies her victory, adding, “We believe I will be victorious and the margin (of victory) may continue to grow.”

Ironically, the vote totals in the congressional race mirror what is transpiring in the presidential race with regard to in-person voting vs. mail-in voting.

When the polls closed in the district on Tuesday night, Scheller had a lead of 136,667 to 75,491. But when the mail-in votes were counted, they favored Wild by a ratio of 110,473 to 38,718, reversing Scheller’s advantage. As it stands now, Wild has received 51.46 percent of the votes cast in the district, compared with 48.54 percent for Scheller.

Wild, meanwhile, pledged to “work as hard as I possibly can” for all voters. She said she plans to be “an independent minded” representative “willing to work with anyone.”

The congresswoman said her priorities in the next term of office will be to help provide a COVID relief package to help provide robust assistance to struggling families; protect and expand health care coverage for all Americans; build the economy with good jobs and good wages, increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour; rebuild the labor movement; and fight for racial justice in the country.