Democratic Rep. Susan Wild (Pa.) has made bipartisanship a key pitch in her campaign for reelection in a GOP-leaning House district, claiming at a recent debate that a Beltway think tank ranks her in the "top 10" most bipartisan members of Congress. The group she cites doesn’t even rank her in the top 100.
At a debate Sunday, Wild cited rankings from the Lugar Center to tout her ability to work across the aisle. "One of the things I’m proudest of is I consistently work in a bipartisan manner," Wild said. "In fact, I was rated by the Lugar Center as being in the top 10, my ranking is in the top 10 for bipartisan members of the House."
But she was wildly off the mark.
The Lugar Center, which releases an annual ranking of House and Senate members in terms of how many bills they cosponsor with the opposing party, ranks Wild as the 109th most bipartisan member of the 435-member House, according to its most recent scorecard.
Wild’s embellishment of her bipartisan bona fides comes as she has shifted to the political center in her bid for reelection in one of the most closely watched House races in the country. Wild, who is running against Republican state representative Ryan Mackenzie, won her race in 2022 by just 2 points. Cook Political Report rates her race a "toss up."
At Sunday’s debate, Mackenzie called Wild a "partisan radical" who votes in lockstep with President Joe Biden "100 percent of the time." He cited disparaging comments she has made about conservative constituents, including her complaint to fellow Democrats earlier this year that constituents in Carbon County, a Republican stronghold in Wild’s district, "drank the Trump Kool-Aid."
Wild apologized for those remarks, saying she had failed to "think" before speaking.
"I am a bipartisan congresswoman, and I’m very proud of that," said Wild, adding, "I represent all of the people regardless of their party affiliation."
Wild cites the Lugar Center on her campaign website, though she makes a slightly different claim about her bipartisanship ranking.
"I’m really proud to be rated by the well-respected and nonpartisan Lugar Center … as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress," Wild says on her campaign website. "I’m in the top 12 percent of most bipartisan members of the House according to their evidence-based rankings."
That statement appears to be based on Lugar Center rankings from 2021 and 2022, when the think tank ranked Wild the 53rd and 41st most bipartisan member of Congress, respectively.
In 2020, the center ranked Wild the 130th most bipartisan lawmaker, and in 2019, she was ranked 238—the bottom half—behind Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), and Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.).
Wild’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.