PA-07: Carol Obando-Derstine (D) makes her case for Congress

Most Democrats talk about the cost of child care, the energy challenges posed by data centers and the need for immigration reform. But Carol Obando-Derstine, the lone woman running to represent the Lehigh Valley’s 7th Congressional District, is the rare candidate who has first-hand experience with all three of those key issues.

She is, as she likes to point out, the only working mom in the race, as well as the only immigrant – her family emigrated from Colombia when she was a child – and the sole Hispanic, in a district where 1 in 5 residents identify as Latino. And few grasp the new demands on the region’s electrical grid better than Obando-Derstine, an engineer who, until last year, worked on transmission and renewable energy integration at PPL Utilities.

As she champions affordability measures, “I understand what it’s like to pay more for child care than my mortgage,” she said in a recent interview. When she calls for defending reproductive rights, she cites her own high-risk pregnancy when she talks about “how costly and how dangerous it can be when politicians try to politicize healthcare.”

“I’ve lived through empty wallets, sacrifices and language barriers,” the candidate said of growing up the daughter of refugees from Colombia’s violent civil war. “I know first-hand what it means to struggle and to fight. And once I climbed out of those struggles, I never pulled the ladder up – I’ve worked to help others get ahead.”



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