Democrat Conor Lamb’s victory in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania special election raised Democrats hopes, while at the same time raising questions about Republicans capability of winning.
Republican Representative Rick Saccone, who President Donald Trump endorsed, is not the first GOP candidate to get his blessing and lose a race. Trump-backed candidates Luther Strange, Roy Moore and Ed Gillespie also lost their Senate races, CNN writes. This seems to suggest that Trump is not necessarily an asset for GOP candidates in special elections. It may also be a sign that the President will be more of a liability than an asset for Republicans in the midterm elections in November.
Some Republicans, however, do not yet grasp the implications of Tuesday’s special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, whereas others seem to realize that relying on Trump may not produce the wanted results.
“You better be ready and in the end, you determine your own fate in these things,” Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, said Wednesday.
Others yet blame Saccone himself for the loss, portraying him as a poor candidate.
“You’ve got to control your own destiny, and he didn’t,” said Representative John Shimkus, who also added that the President’s endorsement came a “little too late.” However, Trump may have, in fact, hurt Saccone considering his poor approval rating, especially among women, which seems to be pulling down GOP candidates.
Lamb declared victory early Wednesday morning, and was introduced as “Congressman-elect” to his crowd of supporters as he took the stage, VOX reports.
“It took a little longer than we thought, but we did it!” he told them, referring to the fact that Democrats hadn’t won in the Districts in over a decade.
Fundstrat policy strategist L. Thomas Block underlined the gravity of the Democrat’s victory by saying, “Trump won this seat by 20 points, Romney won by 17 points. In 2016 and 2014 the Republican House candidate ran unopposed. This is steel country a week after the President announced a tariff on steel imports. This is coal country where the President is advertising his efforts to revive coal.”
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