Make no mistake, the GOP is the actual loser of Tuesday night’s election even if Rick Saccone ultimately is declared the winner.
For Democrat Conor Lamb to be in a virtual tie (actually with a slight lead) after nearly all the votes have been counted is a major accomplishment for him. Remember is is a deep-red congressional district as shown by the following facts:
- Trump won by 20% in 2016
- There were no Democratic candidates in 2016 and 2014, and
- The last time a Democrat ran in this district — in 2012 — he lost by 27 percentage points.
So there is truly no excuse for Republicans to have lost this race, although we will be hearing plenty of excuses from the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in the days and weeks to come.
But here is the ONE fact that above all proves that this special election was an unmitigated disaster for the Republican Party: There are 114 Republican-held congressional seats that are LESS red than Pennsylvania’s 18th district. Since the Democrats need to gain only 24 seats in the November elections, this fact spells doom for the GOP.
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Perspective: There are 114 GOP-held seats more competitive than #pa18 based on Cook PVI, per Dem strategist.
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) March 14, 2018
Interesting stat for the midterms: “There are 114 Republican-held House seats more competitive than Pennsylvania's 18th, according to a Democratic tabulation of the Cook Political Report's partisan voting index.” https://t.co/jJ021RPKjy
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 14, 2018
What we’re seeing is that even in a VERY Republican congressional district a Democrat can win in 2018. The results in PA-18th are sending shockwaves through the Washington political establishment in much the same way as the results from the Alabama special Senate election that saw Democrat Doug Jones pull off a stunning upset.
And Rep. Ted Lieu has confirmed that Democrats are going to try to defeat Devin Nunes, and they have a good chance of doing so.
As a Vice Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, I can confirm we added Devin Nunes district to our target list. Why? Two reasons:
-Nunes writes bad memos
-Dem historic performance is better in Nunes district than Conor Lamb district.A blue wave is coming.
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 14, 2018
Here are the excuses that Republicans will use to try to explain away the special election results:
- Lamb is not a “real Democrat” and he didn’t have to run in a primary.
- Saccone was an unusually bad candidate.
- Lamb raised more money than Saccone.
- Special elections don’t predict midterm results and more Republican voters will show up in November.
Of course none of these excuses hold water.
- Lamb is actually a “real Democrat” and there are plenty more like him running in congressional races all over the country (many in deep-red districts like PA-18th).
- Saccone was not a bad candidate like Ray Moore in Alabama. He was in fact a very typical Republican candidate.
- Saccone actually spent 5 times as much as Lamb because of the outside Republican PAC money that poured into the race, and
- The turnout for the special election last night was the same as turnout has been in past midterm elections.
looks like total turnout will be a little north of 200k. Murphy was unopposed in 2014, got 166k votes. Other PA cong. districts featuring two-party competition were in that general 200k ballpark. Point is, this is basically midterm-level turnout – real good for a special, I'd say
— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) March 14, 2018
So let’s be honest Republicans — there are no excuses for the election results last night. The voters have spoken, and it is a clear rejection of Donald Trump and all of the bad policies of the Republican Party.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
