House Republican leaders will warn their colleagues Wednesday that they need to prepare for a Democratic wave in the midterm elections, in light of the special election in Pennsylvania that allowed a young Democrat to claim victory in a district that President Trump won by 20 points in 2016.
Moderate Democrat Conor Lamb appears to have defeated Republican state Sen. Rick Saccone in the 18th Congressional District by just 641 votes, with all precincts reporting but with more than 1,000 absentee ballots still outstanding.
But even if Saconne had pulled it out, Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, was planning to use the outcome as a warning to the many House Republicans that leaders fear are ill prepared for a tough midterm environment shaping up as a backlash against the White House.
House Republicans were set to meet Wednesday morning across the street from the Capitol for a previously scheduled conference meeting. But that meeting will now be used to examine the Pennsylvania race, and a source familiar with Stivers’ planned discussion said he would focus on five points:
- Candidates and campaigns matter.
- Don’t get outraised/outspent at all — let alone 5-1 like Saccone did.
- Define yourself (Saccone was an Air Force vet, interrogated terrorists in Mosul, wrote 9 books, and had a Ph.D. … but nobody knew).
- Define your opponent (Lamb was able to run as a Republican).
- You need to run a real race.
On a positive note, Stivers will point out that “Conor Lamb is the only Democrat in America who hasn’t faced a primary which would’ve forced him to the Left (which makes his moderation harder to replicate),” a Republican source said. The primary season, just underway this month, will determine what kind of candidates Democrats nominate.
Republican insiders universally panned Saccone. They argue that he wasn’t an appealing candidate and, compounding matters, ran a poor campaign.
That might have worked when Barack Obama was president, Republicans say, but it could buy you a ticket to the private sector under Trump, a polarizing leader who is energizing Democratic voters across the country and whose appeal on the Right is not necessarily transferable to other Republicans.
Trump traveled to Southwest Pennsylvania the Saturday before the vote to rally support for Saccone. The event was packed and the president delivered the sort of rambling, charged up stem-winder his base loves. Saccone still ended up behind in a district that has been so solidly Republican, the Democrats didn’t even field a congressional candidate there in 2016.
“Candidates and campaigns are still the most important factors for success. This race should be a wake up call to every candidate and member of Congress that they have to be prepared financially and organizationally for campaigning in a very difficult environment,” said a Republican strategist involved in House races.
The 18th District opened last fall after anti-abortion Republican Tim Murphy was forced to resign amid an embarrassing sex scandal in which he got his mistress pregnant, then pushed her to get an abortion.
