In less than a month, voters in Pennsylvania’s 18th District will head to the ballot box for one of the most interesting special elections of the year. Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone will be vying to fill the seat vacated by resigning Republican Rep. Tim Murphy. (The pro-life legislator tried to get his mistress to have an abortion and had some ethical issues that could have triggered an investigation).
And recent polls show a close race.
On Sunday, Gravis released a poll showing Saccone ahead of Lamb, 46 percent to 40 percent. This represents an improvement for Lamb—in January, Gravis had the Republican ahead 46 percent to 34 percent. Monmouth also showed a tight race, with Saccone only leading by three. Monmouth has Saccone’s lead within the margin of error, and there’s precedent for polls averages in House races to be off by five to seven points. In other words, this district—which voted for Trump by about 20 points in 2016—isn’t yet in the bag for the GOP.
So why is this race close?
One possible explanation is the national environment. Trump won the district by 20 points in 2016, but the GOP has lost some strength since then. The RCP average of generic ballot polls (which essentially ask a national sample of voters who they plan to cast their ballot for in 2018) shows Democrats ahead by seven points (Republicans won the House popular vote in the 2016 election).
Another possible explanation is Lamb. In the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Lamb made headlines by saying “there’s not one thing we can do with the stroke of a pen or one thing you can ban” to prevent gun violence, emphasized mental health and has generally distanced himself from the national party. Democrats in red districts and Republicans in blue states or districts (e.g. Massachusetts GOP governor Charlie Baker, who is also the most popular governor in the country) can sometimes win by deviating from the national party’s stance on key issues or tailoring their image to their district. Lamb isn’t conservative on every issue, but he seems to be trying to run to the right of other Democrats on some key issues.
Some of the district’s voters may also be persuadable. The 18th District is ground zero for some of the changes within the Republican Party. George W. Bush won 49.7 percent and 53.3 percent of the vote in 2000 and 2004, respectively (those numbers were calculated by DDHQ’s Miles Coleman), and according to Daily Kos Elections, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump won 55.2, 57.9 and 58.1 percent of the vote there, respectively. The basic progression here is simple: Trump alone didn’t shift this area from swing to deep red. As national Democrats nominated increasingly culturally liberal candidates, they lost the area. If Lamb manages to project an image that’s culturally to the right of the national Democratic Party, he might be able to temporarily lure some Republican converts back to him. That, combined with a Democratic turnout advantage, could make this race close
But it’s worth emphasizing that Saccone has been leading in recent polls and that Lamb could outperform Clinton by a significant margin and still lose. And handicappers like Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Cook Political Report still give Saccone the edge.
It’s also worth noting that this election is arguably slightly less important than some of the other Trump-era House special elections. Because Pennsylvania is currently redrawing its congressional map, the bottom line for this race is that the 18th District may look somewhat different by the time November 2018 rolls around.
But the election is still worth watching—it’s another opportunity for the public to make their voice heard in a bizarre, tumultuous political era.
