Kellyanne Conway stumps for Rick Saccone in Pittsburgh,
In a meeting with volunteers and in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday’s special election poses a stark choice for voters — but if Republican Rick Saccone loses, no one should read too much into it.
Special elections “end up being microcosms of the differences between the two major parties,” Ms. Conway told roughly 20 volunteers at the Green Tree office of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County.
Standing beside Mr. Saccone, she ticked off a number of areas in which he differs from Democrat Conor Lamb. Those include their positions on a Republican tax-cut plan — Mr. Saccone supports it as a boon to business, while Mr. Lamb flags its effect on future deficits — and a “huge contrast on abortion.”
Mr. Saccone stridently opposes abortion. Mr. Lamb, though he professes to be opposed to abortion personally, said he would not impose that value on women who don’t share it. “You can’t just say that you are one thing and be another,” Ms. Conway scoffed.
Ms. Conway visited Pittsburgh to address the county GOP’s annual “Spirit of Lincoln” Dinner, where she spoke to 500 party leaders to tout Mr. Saccone and boast about President Donald Trump’s first 14 months in office.
Democrats objected that Republican tax cuts passed last year would benefit only the wealthy, she said. But “the tax cut already benefited the wealthy. … This is for the middle class.” Democrats
who opposed the cuts, she said, should be asked, “Why did you say ‘no’ to me?”
Mr. Trump is expected to tout Mr. Saccone during a Saturday campaign rally at a hangar at Pittsburgh International Airport. Ms. Conway told her audience that he would talk up the tariffs on steel and aluminum that he signed Thursday afternoon.
“The president has been so consistent upon this for decades … that we have to look out for the workers,” she said.
She expanded on that in a subsequent interview.
“He’s making good on a campaign promise, but he’s also making good on a core value,” she said. “[W]e have to have free and fair trade agreements, but they have to be reciprocal.”
And she kept up the attacks on Mr. Lamb, calling him “somebody who folks around here know would grab their guns and raise their taxes.”
In fact, Mr. Lamb has shown little interest in guncontrol measures beyond enhancing background checks. And polls show the race is in a statistical dead heat.
For Republicans, that is a disconcerting place to be in the 18th District, which sprawls across four southwestern Pennsylvania counties. In 2016, voters in the district supported Mr. Trump by roughly 20 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
But Ms. Conway said she wasn’t surprised at polling showing a neck-and-neck race in this year’s special election. “With candidates who aren’t well known … it’s very hard to puncture 50 percent and stay there.”
If Mr. Saccone loses, what would it say about Mr. Trump’s popularity?
“Nothing,” she said. While“special elections tend to command outsize resources” from national interests, “they tend to be very particular to the candidates in the race.”
Some national Republicans have voiced concern about just that.
A day before Ms. Conway’s visit, the online journal Politico reported that, among national Republicans, Mr. Saccone had been “nearly universally panned as a deeply underwhelming candidate” who lacked fundraising prowess.
“I haven’t heard that” discontent, Ms. Conway said. “Lots of people complain about many things all day long,” but in her circle, “People are very excited to keep this seat in Republican hands.”
Throughout her visit, Ms. Conway pointedly asserted that she came here “in my personal capacity,” using vacation time. On Tuesday, the Office of Special Counsel found that she had violated the federal Hatch Act, which bars officials from politicking on public time, by advocating against the Democrat in a special election in Alabama for U.S. Senate. The White House has contested that finding.