Austin American-Statesman

Why today’s vote in Pa. matters for midterms

Analysts see contest as possible key test before November.

- By Bill Barrow and Marc Levy

Analysts see special congressio­nal election as a key test of support for the GOP before November.

The outcome of today’s special congressio­nal election in Pennsylvan­ia, the first of 2018, is being closely watched as a key test of support for Republican­s ahead of November’s midterms. Democrats must flip 24 GOPheld seats to claim a House majority, and an upset will embolden them as they look to win in places where the party has lost ground in recent decades. Republican­s hope to keep a seat they have had no trouble defending in recent elections.

The candidates

Republican Rick Saccone, a 60-year-old state lawmaker, has struggled with an electorate that favored President Donald Trump by 20 percentage points just 16 months ago. He needs the residents of the 18th Congressio­nal District to nationaliz­e their choice and make him a proxy for what they already think about Washington, the president and the issues that define their party affiliatio­n.

Democrat Conor Lamb, 33, a Marine veteran and former federal prosecutor, has crystalliz­ed the debate over whether a younger, charismati­c Democrat appealing to win back traditiona­lly Democratic voters can overcome Republican party loyalty in a GOP-leaning district at a time when Trump remains a divisive figure.

The president’s role

Trump invoked “steel and business” Monday as he and his son made a final push to sway voters. Trump has already visited the district twice to try to buoy Saccone.

“The Pittsburgh Post Gazette just endorsed Rick Saccone for Congress,” Trump tweeted Monday. “He will be much better for steel and business. Very strong on experience and what our Country needs. Lamb will always vote for Pelosi and Dems .... Will raise taxes, weak on Crime and Border.”

The campaign

Saccone has tried at times to make the race about experience, touting his four decades in the public and private sector, from an Air Force career and stint in North Korea to his current job as a college professor. He sometimes mocks Lamb as having “no record at all.”

But that, by itself, hasn’t given Saccone much traction against Lamb, who hails from an establishe­d Allegheny County political family and pitches himself as independen­t-minded. To back that up, Lamb opposes sweeping gun restrictio­ns, endorses Trump’s new steel tariffs, avoids attacking the president, and tells voters he wouldn’t back Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California for speaker if Democrats won a House majority.

Lamb keeps to party orthodoxy on unions in a district with a long history of coal mining and steel-making.

He blasts the new Republican tax law as a gift to the wealthy and a threat to Social Security and Medicare. “People have paid into these programs over the course of a lifetime,” Lamb told more than 300 retired coal miners and Democratic activists Sunday in Waynesburg, 40 miles south of Pittsburgh. “I do not believe, as (Republican House Speaker) Paul Ryan does, that these are entitlemen­ts or another form of welfare.”

Tariffs

Protection­ist tariffs, which most economists warn will hurt more American workers than they help, were a Democratic rallying cry before the era of Bill Clinton. As a candidate, Trump appropriat­ed the issue, as part of his pledge to restore factories to beleaguere­d cities. That stance helped pave the way for the narrow victories over Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvan­ia, Wisconsin and Michigan that won him the White House.

“A lot of our members just didn’t trust Hillary Clinton,” said Tim Waters, political director of the United Steelworke­rs. “Donald Trump talked a lot about working-class voter issues, especially on trade. It resonated with a lot of people in working-class neighborho­ods. We’re hoping that in 2018, the Democratic Party figures out you can’t have the same message in Phoenix that you have in Pittsburgh.”

Lamb, who insists that he is not running against Trump, agrees with the president on the need for protective tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Labor’s role

Union leaders said the Lamb race was a model of how they would mobilize to back candidates in the midterm elections this year and in the 2020 election. “We are going back to what we know best, which is talking to our members,” said Rick Bloomingda­le, president of the Pennsylvan­ia AFL-CIO. “Whether it’s at the work site, or at their doors, or on the phones, or through the mails.”

Unions have a ready foil in Saccone, who supports rightto-work legislatio­n in Harrisburg, the state capital, and who opposed requiring the use of American-made materials in public projects. The AFL-CIO said he refused to fill out its candidate questionna­ire.

Saccone, who has served four terms in the Legislatur­e, insisted that his record would not hurt him, because rankand-file voters were with him on issues like immigratio­n and cutting business taxes and regulation­s.

“I wouldn’t be in office if union members didn’t support me,” he said in an interview. “They know, while their leadership supports candidates that drive jobs out of Pennsylvan­ia and they’re for sanctuary cities and illegal aliens and open borders, I am against all of that.”

The voters

Barbara DeFelice, a 64-year-old retiree, said she decided months ago to back Saccone for one reason: opposition to abortion rights.

“He shares my values,” DeFelice said Sunday. “I just don’t understand that people say we shouldn’t put lobsters into hot, boiling water ... but we can kill babies.”

The Republican argument is enough for voters like 54-year-old Jeffrey Snelling. “I don’t know much about Rick Saccone,” he acknowledg­ed, adding that he remains skeptical about Trump. His bottom line, though: “I’m not voting for any liberal who’s going to advance the Democratic Party agenda.”

Asked why Lamb could win the district when Democratic presidenti­al candidate Hillary Clinton couldn’t, Bill Kortz, a former steel worker and a Democratic state lawmaker from Allegheny County, said it came down to Lamb’s opposition to more gun control. “He’s a Marine,” Kortz said. “He’s good with guns. He’s good with the Second Amendment.”

The district

Boasting a more than 3-to-1 fundraisin­g advantage over Saccone, Lamb has plastered his message on Pittsburgh television and animated Democrats who haven’t had recent reason to care.

The party didn’t even run opponents against the previous congressma­n, Republican Tim Murphy, in 2014 and 2016. Murphy resigned in October amid a sex scandal.

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 ?? AP ?? LEFT: Conor Lamb, the Democratic congressio­nal candidate in Pennsylvan­ia’s 18th District, greets supporters after speaking to the United Mine Workers of America on Sunday. GETTY IMAGES RIGHT: Republican Rick Saccone talks with supporters at a campaign rally last week in Waynesburg, Pa. Saccone and Lamb are running in a special election being held today in the congressio­nal district being vacated by Republican Tim Murphy.
AP LEFT: Conor Lamb, the Democratic congressio­nal candidate in Pennsylvan­ia’s 18th District, greets supporters after speaking to the United Mine Workers of America on Sunday. GETTY IMAGES RIGHT: Republican Rick Saccone talks with supporters at a campaign rally last week in Waynesburg, Pa. Saccone and Lamb are running in a special election being held today in the congressio­nal district being vacated by Republican Tim Murphy.
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