For Saccone, Trump is key to GOP victory in Pa. House race
GREENSBURG, PA. » There is no sign of Republican congressional candidate Rick Saccone on Sherwood Drive.
Days before a special U.S. House election in western Pennsylvania, Saccone’s campaign told some residents that he might be knocking on doors that morning. It’s almost 11 a.m. They’re waiting.
“He was supposed to stop by today,” 68-year-old Republican John Debich says, scanning the empty streets of suburban Greensburg from his front porch. “It’s the second time we’ve been avoided.”
Saccone may be President Donald Trump’s strong favorite in a conservative region, but he’s leaning seemingly exclusively on that and struggling with the basics of modern-day politics.
Tuesday’s race will hinge on voter turnout, and the 60-year-old state lawmaker has little organization of his own — at least compared with Democrat Conor Lamb, a 33-year-old former Marine and federal prosecutor who has never before run for office.
Saccone indirectly admitted as much Saturday ahead of the president’s arrival.
“The president’s support is key to attaining victory,” he roared to several thousand backers gathered near the Pittsburgh airport. “There’s no one that I would rather have in my corner that President Trump. Are you with me on that?”
Fearing another special election embarrassment, the White House sent Trump to rally the party’s core backers. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway campaigned for Saccone on Thursday, though her first appearance at a Pittsburgh “meet and greet” with campaign volunteers attracted fewer than 20 people. Donald Trump Jr. is set to rally voters on Monday.
Former Vice President Joe Biden came to the district this past week for Lamb, but national Democrats didn’t plan to bring in additional high-profile figures in the campaign’s waning days.
Get-out-the-vote operations are the lifeblood of most successful campaigns. But Saccone’s has drawn little energy from within, so he is relying on paid contractors and the national GOP, which has scrambled to pick up the slack.
“We’re doing everything that we need to do to get out the vote and inspire people,” Saccone told reporters this week before a private event with representatives from the oil and gas industry. He added, “All the traditional things, we’re doing.”
Later that day, Lamb marched up and down the hilly streets of Carnegie in the snow to encourage Democrats to vote. Some residents of the workingclass Pittsburgh suburb were surprised to see the Democratic candidate at their doorstep.
Josh Jaros and his partner, Kim Zouko, both 36, invited Lamb into their living room, where he played with their 3-year-old daughter for a few minutes before asking them who they were voting for.
“You’ve got our vote. And if you didn’t before, you do now,” Jaros told him.
After knocking on 27 doors, Lamb returned to a nearby campaign office to speak to nearly 40 young volunteers, many of them in high school. They munched on macaroni and cheese and pulled pork as Lamb emphasized the importance of preserving Medicare and Social Security — programs that help people maintain “basic dignity,” he said.