On Thursday, scandal-tarred Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Tim Murphy announced that he would resign from Congress, effective Oct. 21. Murphy's departure came one day after he announced that he would complete his term but not seek re-election next year. Under Pennsylvania law, local party delegates will select their candidates for the upcoming special election rather than hold primaries. It's not clear when the special will be, but it's too late to hold it on Nov. 7 along with Pennsylvania's other regularly scheduled contests. Pennsylvania's 18th District, which includes part of Pittsburgh's Allegheny County as well as nearby Westmoreland and Washington counties, went for Donald Trump by a 58-39 margin last year, not much different than Romney's 58-41 win.
Murphy, who has been an out loud and proud opponent of abortion, has easily won re-election here since 2002, but he began attracting bad headlines last month when he admitted to having an affair with a woman named Shannon Edwards. That story looked survivable, but Murphy's career self-destructed this week when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a text Edwards sent Murphy in January taking him to task for posting an anti-abortion message on Facebook, telling him he had some gall doing that “when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week.” Murphy assured Edwards that those messages were from his staff and he "read them and winced. I told staff don't write any more. I will." (Edwards' pregnancy scare turned out to be a false alarm.)
There are plenty of Republicans who could run here, though things may change now that party insiders, rather than voters, will pick the nominee. State Sen. Guy Reschenthaler, who was prosecutor in the Navy's Judge Advocate General's office in Iraq, announced he was running on Wednesday night. Even before Murphy announced he wasn't seeking re-election, GOP sources told the Post-Gazette that there was already movement towards Reschenthaler. If party insiders like him, that could go a long way towards helping him win the GOP nod. State Rep. Rick Saccone, whose campaign against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey seems to be going nowhere, expressed interest on Wednesday night about running here instead.
While Democrats used to do well in this part of Western Pennsylvania, this is going to be a tough pickup. Still, as we've noted before, party conventions often nominate candidates who are chummy with party delegates, but whose electoral skills are often quite lacking. Just this year, GOP delegates in Kansas picked Republican Ron Estes for a special election to the House, and his weak campaign helped him win a 60-33 Trump seat only 53-46. Their counterparts in Montana also selected Greg Gianforte, who infamously beat up a reporter on election eve. There's no guarantee Team Red will screw up again, but if they do and Democratic special election enthusiasm carries over here, Democrats will want to be ready.
A few candidates were already running, with the influential group VoteVets backing Navy veteran Pam Iovino on Wednesday. Former Allegheny County Council Member Mike Crossey and physician Robert Solomon also are in.