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The Lamb Surge: Democrat Looking Strong in Trump-Country Special Election

For many reasons, the March 13 congressional special election in southwest Pennsylvania should be a yawner. Its venue, the 18th Congressional District, has been trending toward the GOP for many years. The Republican incumbent who resigned in December after it transpired that he was encouraging an extramarital lover to get an abortion, Tim Murphy, didn’t even draw a Democratic opponent in 2016 or 2014, and only failed to obtain 60 percent of the vote in the Democratic wave election of 2006.

And unlike previous Trump-era special elections in historically strong Republican jurisdictions, there’s no obvious asterisk making this one perilous for the GOP. Last year’s big House special election, in Georgia’s Sixth, was in a district full of highly educated suburbanites that only went for Donald Trump by a single point. Trump carried Pennsylvania’s 18th District by 19 points. And in 2017’s other big Democratic upset, the special Senate election in Alabama, Republicans were yoked to a wildly controversial candidate who hated raising money, and who immediately became embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal. Eighteenth District GOP candidate Rick Saccone ain’t all that, but he’s a reasonably orthodox and scandal-free candidate with a decent résumé, running against a first-time candidate, former prosecutor Conor Lamb.


Source :- nymag

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