Oh, goodie:
Ordinarily, you’d expect pundits to be impressed by news that President Donald Trump plans to visit Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District next week.
The visit, first reported by the online political magazine Politico Thursday evening, would bring serious starpower to help state Rep. Rick Saccone, the Elizabeth Republican competing to replace Tim Murphy in a March 13 special election. Mr. Trump, after all, won the district by roughly 20 points in 2016, and Vice President Mike Pence is also expected to visit at least once.
Mr. Trump’s appearance would have “huge” benefits for Mr. Saccone, Congressman Mike Kelly, R-Butler, told the political journal.
Yet the day after the report, political prognosticators at the University of Virginia Center for Politics shifted the district from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” suggesting a Democratic upset could be more likely.
Kyle Kondik, who handicaps Congressional races for the Center, said he changed the rating because the moves suggested Republican anxiety — though he noted the new rating still gave the edge to Mr. Saccone.
Republicans “see real trouble,” said Tim Waters, the national political director for the United Steelworkers. The union is backing Mr. Saccone’s rival, Democrat Conor Lamb. And Mr. Waters said, “I’ve never seen the president and the vice president be in a district that should be so safe. … If they didn’t need to do that, they wouldn’t be doing it.”
Here’s a little more info:
It is unusual for a White House to expend so much political capital on a single House race, particularly in what's typically seen as a safe Republican district. But the involvement underscores the high stakes confronting the administration as it approaches a midterm election in which the party’s hold on the House majority is in grave danger. A loss in the working class Pennsylvania district, which the president won by 20 percentage points, would show that few GOP seats are safe.
Republicans have reason to worry. Aside from his anemic fundraising, Saccone, a Trump-aligned state representative, is facing a telegenic opponent in Democrat Conor Lamb, an Ivy League-educated 33-year-old attorney and Marine Corps veteran. The special election was triggered in October, when former GOP Rep. Tim Murphy resigned amid allegations that he asked a woman he was having an affair with to get an abortion.
The contest was discussed at a private weekend sit-down between Trump and congressional leaders at Camp David last weekend. During the meeting, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy delivered a sobering presentation on the election landscape in which he underscored the historic tendency for the party in power to lose seats in a president’s first midterm. McCarthy, according to two people familiar with the discussion, made a broad ask for assistance from the White House and warned that a loss of the House majority could have profound consequences for Trump's administration.
Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican who is retiring, pointed out that his party has underperformed in a series of special elections since the president took office.
“I hope that doesn't happen in southwestern Pennsylvania because that's a Trump district and the outcome there could have repercussions for the midterms more broadly,” Dent said in an interview. "It should go Republican, but in this environment one can never take anything for granted."
The outcome could also have consequences for the White House political office, which is attempting to corral the Republican Party machinery ahead of a brutal midterm season. This week, the White House, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, began holding what is expected to be a regularly scheduled conference call to coordinate their activities on the race.
Behind the scenes, the party is taking additional steps to prepare. The RNC has two field staffers on the ground and has begun executing a get-out-the-vote plan that was approved by the White House. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the principal pro-House GOP super PAC, opened an office in the district and has dispatched 50 door-knockers there. The conservative outside group Ending Spending has announced plans to invest $1 million on TV ads, and 45Committee, a pro-Trump outside group, is set to launch a $500,000 media campaign.
Along with major unions like United Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO, the group, VoteVets, smells blood in the water and is determined to help the Marines Corps Veteran Conor Lamb (D. PA-18) pull off a huge win:
Yesterday we emailed about Democrat Conor Lamb, the Marine Corps veteran running in a special election in two months.
This is a winnable race, but Conor needs our help. Recently, Paul Ryan's Super PAC announced they were opening campaign offices and hiring staff in district. Another Super PAC announced a $1 million ad buy to help elect the Republican. And Trump just announced he was visiting the district personally to help win the race.
Republicans are sweating because they know if they lose this race, they are going to lose the House. Split a $2 donation between VoteVets and Conor Lamb's campaign today:
http://action.votevets.org/conor-lamb
Thanks,
- The team at VoteVets
Click here to donate to Lamb’s campaign.