The Republican collapse in a Tuesday special election in Southwest Pennsylvania has reignited fears that enactment of the historic tax overhaul won’t help the party escape the midterm downdraft from President Trump.
The Democrats erased a 20 percentage point Trump advantage in the typically Republican 18th Congressional District, with Democrat Conor Lamb leading Republican Rick Saccone by a hair with most precincts in and the absentee votes yet to count.
It wasn’t the blowout some Republicans feared, but the development signals a toxic political atmosphere made more so by a polarizing president whose domination of the media has overwhelmed good news about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and its positive impact on the economy. Most worrisome to senior Republicans — that incumbents used to electoral booms under President Barack Obama are ill-prepared for what’s coming.
“It’s getting too late for some of these members to turn things around,” said GOP strategist Jeff Burton, a former National Republican Congressional Committee official who now runs the Burton Strategy Group. “Some incumbents could lose in November who don’t even think they have races right now.”
Even if Saccone, a state senator, ends up winning, Republican insiders say their nominee and the campaign he ran are prime examples of how to lose an imminently winnable race, especially in this environment.
Lamb, a telegenic Marine veteran and former prosecutor, campaigned as a moderate on cultural issues and distanced himself from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. He was the perfect Democrat to run strong in a conservative seat, a luxury Lamb’s party might not have in similar districts elsewhere. But the Democrats didn’t even field a candidate in the 18th in 2016, and Saccone would have easily performed better had he fielded a competent campaign and raised more money.
“This is a very tough environment for Republicans. To be successful, we need good candidates who run strong campaigns,” said Corry Bliss, executive director of Congressional Leadership Fund. “It’s not nice to say this, but the Saccone campaign was a joke. The way this is supposed to work, the campaign gets to the 20-yard line, and we can help get them to the end zone, but in this case, the campaign couldn’t find the field.”
The NRCC poured more than $4 million into the race, and CLF, the super PAC aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., dumped in another $3.5 million, all to save Saccone in a district unlikely to exist next year because of a re-gerrymandering of the map driven by the liberal Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
CLF opened two field offices in the district in January and knocked on more than 250,000 doors. It ran seven different advertisements and test-drove some creative spots that could surface in campaigns against similar candidates, including one targeted at Democrats that thanked Lamb for opposing gun control and another that accused him of being anti-union because he opposed a $15 minimum wage.
The effort only carried Saccone so far, and top Republicans warn this is not the year for incumbents or challenger candidates to lean on outside groups to win re-election.
House Republican leaders were expected to address the matter of candidate proficiency Wednesday morning during a previously scheduled political conference meeting across the street from the Capitol. They planned to deliver a stern warning to colleagues to immediately accelerate fundraising and arm their campaigns with top talent.
“Candidates matter; outside organizations aren’t a welfare program. CLF and the NRCC can’t tell your story as effectively as you can,” a senior Republican strategist involved in the Pennsylvania special election said.
A key concern for Republicans is that Trump continues to be a drag, commanding public attention in a way that undermines the party’s standing in House battlegrounds.
Republicans were more hopeful about November early in the year, as voters embraced the $1.4 trillion tax package that cleared Congress despite unanimous Democratic opposition. Voters’ impression of the GOP majorities in Congress, and Trump, saw marked improvement. But recent midterm indicators suggest the uptick might have been fleeting.
The president over the past two weeks has pivoted away from the optimistic message about tax reform, to his plans to slap steep tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, announced Thursday, and a gloomy picture of American jobs and wages being held back by other countries’ unfair trade practices.
It didn’t necessarily hurt Republicans in the 18th District, a seat with blue-collar, protectionist roots. Indeed, it might have helped. But it could damage Republicans in upscale suburban battlegrounds that hold the key to the House majority this fall. Meanwhile, the impact of Trump’s visit to the district to rescue Saccone wasn’t unclear.
Trump held one of his signature rambling and raucous rallies in the Southwest Pennsylvania the Saturday evening before the vote. A Republican insider who has monitored the special election campaign said that the event surely energized already enthusiastic Democratic base, possibly more so than any boost it gave to Saccone. That suggests that the president’s style of politicking is of limited utility to the GOP down-ticket, even in districts where the majority of voters are supportive of him.
“I think GOP candidates need to find strategies to win and not try to repeat Trump’s 2016 strategy,” said Josh Novatney, a Republican strategist from Philadelphia. “The GOP has some good candidates in 2018, but they need to find a way to both turn out the base and appeal to suburban voters and do all of this in a potential headwind.”
