The super PAC aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan is opening two field offices in Pennsylvania’s vacant 18th Congressional District to boost Republican fortunes in an upcoming special election.
Congressional Leadership Fund plans to parachute into the southwestern Pennsylvania seat and deploy its voter turnout operation to bolster Republican nominee Rick Saccone, a state representative, in the March 13 contest. The race was triggered last fall after Republican Tim Murphy was forced to resign from Congress amid a sex scandal.
“This special election is very simple. There are two stark choices: Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked candidate who will be nothing more than a foot soldier in her liberal war on America, or a proven Conservative who will stand for Pennsylvania families and their values,” Corry Bliss, CLF executive director, said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
Conor Lamb, an attorney and military veteran, is running for the Democrats.
President Trump won the 18th district by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016, and Republicans are expected to hold the seat. But despite the Republicans winning all five special House elections last year, GOP turnout in some of last year’s special elections was down, and Democratic turnout juiced. That was the case even in seats drawn to protect Republican incumbents.
CLF isn’t taking any chances. The group opened temporary field offices in 2017 in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, and in Montana for the state’s at-large seat, during special election campaigns there. It’s now doing the same in Pennsylvania’s 18th. The group’s effort was set to begin this week, with 50 paid, full-time door-knockers targeting 250,000 homes through Election Day.
Overseeing CLF’s two field offices is the super PAC’s data director, who will work from the 18th District for the next three months.
The group has budgeted $100 million for the 2018 election cycle on a ground game and advertising program to help Republicans protect the House majority. With the opening of eight new offices this month, CLF will be operating a total of 27 permanent field offices, with 8 more expected by June.
Meredith Kelly, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, dismissed CLF’s ground game as a “threadbare field operation.”
