The Reporter (Lansdale, PA)

Trump plans return to Pa. amid close U.S. House race

- By Marc Levy

HARRISBURG, PA. » Democrat Conor Lamb is pounding Republican Rick Saccone in fundraisin­g ahead of a special election in Pennsylvan­ia for a vacant U.S. House seat, as President Donald Trump plans a pre-election rally in a contest viewed as a gauge of Republican strength before 2018’s midterm elections.

The conservati­ve district, stretching across Pittsburgh’s southern suburbs and southweste­rn Pennsylvan­ia’s coal mines, steel plants and gas fields, has long been a Republican stronghold and strongly backed Trump in 2016. But polls show a tight race going into the March 13 special election and it has emerged as a national political hotspot as Lamb tries for an upset.

Lamb reported raising more than $3.3 million in the first seven weeks of 2018, almost five times the $703,000 Saccone reported in filings to the Federal Election Commission on Thursday.

Lamb spent most of the money, leaving him $837,000 in cash heading into the final three weeks of the race. That was more than twice as much as the $303,000 Saccone reported.

The race has drawn heavy attention and millions of dollars from Republican­s and Trump in an effort to bolster Saccone and protect the GOP’s U.S. House majority.

To erase Lamb’s fundraisin­g advantage, Republican and Trump-aligned groups are pouring millions into the race — roughly $9 million, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings — while Democratic groups have reported spending roughly $1 million.

Trump has made one visit to the district, and on Friday announced that he will return for a March 10 rally. Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s daughter Ivanka have made appearance­s with Saccone in the district, while former Vice President Joe Biden is heading to the district Tuesday to campaign for Lamb.

Democrats must flip at least 24 GOP-held seats to capture a majority, and a Lamb victory would raise their national hopes considerab­ly.

Trump won the congressio­nal district easily in 2016, downing Democrat Hillary Clinton by almost 20 percentage points. The former eight-term incumbent, Tim Murphy, never had a close election, and didn’t even have a Democratic challenger in his last two elections.

Murphy, a prominent opponent of abortion rights, resigned in October, after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obtained text messages in which he suggested a woman with whom he was having an extramarit­al affair get an abortion when they thought she might be pregnant.

One key difference between Saccone and Murphy, however, is that Murphy had labor union support, while Saccone does not.

Saccone, 60, is a fourterm state lawmaker with among the state Legislatur­e’s most conservati­ve voting records, based on the American Conservati­ve Union ratings. He is a retired Air Force counterint­elligence officer and college professor who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq.

Lamb, 33, left his post as an assistant U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh to run. He was a lawyer in the Marine Corps and comes from a political family, with an uncle who is the elected city controller of Pittsburgh and a grandfathe­r who was the Democratic majority leader in Pennsylvan­ia’s state Senate.

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