Lamb edges out win in Pa. Congress race
Victory may provide model for Dems to reclaim Trump turf
Conor Lamb, a Democrat and former Marine, scored a razorthin but extraordinary upset in a special U.S. House election in southwestern Pennsylvania after a few thousand absentee ballots delivered Democrats a win in the heart of President Donald Trump’s Rust Belt base.
The victory still may be contested, but Lamb’s 627-vote lead Wednesday afternoon appeared insurmountable, given that the four counties in Pennsylvania’s 18th district have about 500 provisional, military and other absentee ballots left to count, county election officials said. That slim margin, out of almost 230,000 ballots cast, nonetheless upended the political landscape ahead of November’s midterm elections and emboldened fellow Democrats to run maverick campaigns even in deep-red areas where Republicans remain bedeviled by Trump’s unpopularity.
Republican officials in Washington said they were likely to demand a recount through litigation, and the National Republican Congressional Committee put out a call for voters to report any irregularities in the balloting. Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the committee, said the party was “not conceding anything.”
But absent significant adjustments in the tally, Lamb, a 33-yearold former prosecutor from a local Democratic dynasty, pulled off a staggering upset over Rick Saccone, a Republican state legislator, in a district that Trump carried by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016.
Template for midterms
The hairbreadth outcome in the race belied its sweeping consequences. The battle for a district in suburban and rural areas around Pittsburgh underscored the degree to which Trump’s appeal has receded across the country. And it exposed the ways in which both parties are weighed down by divisive leaders: Democrats by Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader; Republicans by Trump and Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House.
Just as vividly, the race showed that only one party appears willing to grapple with the implications of campaigning under a radioactive figurehead.
In Pennsylvania, Lamb presented himself as independentminded and neighborly, vowing early he would not support Pelosi to lead House Democrats and playing down his connections to his national party. He echoed traditional Democratic themes about union rights and economic fairness but took a more conservative position on the hot-button issue of guns.
Throughout the race, Lamb said he welcomed support from people who voted for Trump, and he saved his most blunt criticism for Ryan, highlighting the speaker’s ambitions to overhaul Social Security and Medicare.
Lamb’s approach could become a template for a cluster of more moderate Democrats contesting conservative-leaning seats, in states like Arkansas, Kansas and Utah. Democrats in Washington have focused chiefly on Republican-held seats in the upscale suburbs where Trump is most intensely disliked.
But they are hungry for gains across the political map, and in red areas they have encouraged candidates to put local imperatives above fealty to the national party.
Emboldened Democrats
On the Republican side, Saccone, 60, campaigned chiefly as a stand-in for Trump, endorsing the president’s agenda from top to bottom. He campaigned extensively with Trump and members of his administration and relied heavily on campaign spending from outside Republican groups that attempted to make Pelosi a central voting issue. Conservative outside groups also sought to promote the tax cuts recently enacted by the party but found that message had little effect. Saccone has not conceded. In a meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday, Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, who leads the party’s campaign committee, described the race as “too close to call,” according to a person who heard his presentation.
But Ryan and Stivers also called the election a “wake-up call” for Republican lawmakers, telling them that they could not afford to fall behind on fundraising, as Saccone did.
Lamb raised $3.9 million and spent $3 million, compared with Saccone’s $900,000 raised and $600,000 spent as of Feb. 21. But Republican outside groups swamped the district. Between conservative super PACs and the National Republican Congressional Committee, Saccone had more than $14 million spent on his behalf. Lamb got just over $2 million. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, said Lamb’s campaign showed that the Republicans’ anti-Pelosi playbook had real limitations. The race, he said, should embolden Democrats to contest difficult districts in the Midwest with an economic message that appeals to elements of Trump’s base.
“Conor Lamb was talking about redevelopment and economic growth, and the Republicans were talking about Nancy Pelosi,” Peduto said. “It’s like they couldn’t help themselves.”
Peduto urged the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the electioneering vehicle for House Democrats, to expand its target list.
“If you’re in a congressional district that’s 8, 10 or 12 points carried by Trump, I would hope that the DCCC is now putting that in the target.”