Now that all the partisan spinning and political punditry has died down regarding Tuesday’s special election in Pennsylvania for a congressional seat, let’s concede this: The outcome may be widely misunderstood as worrisome Republicans and jubilant Democrats remain typically off base in their attempts to shape public opinion about the Democratic win in the Pittsburgh suburbs.
First, the Republican Party’s coy attempts to downplay this demoralizing loss are laughable. On Monday, the GOP was portraying the Democratic winner, Conor Lamb, as a typical tax-and-spend liberal who does not represent the values of Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District. On Wednesday, when the final results were in, these same party leaders insisted that Lamb won only because he essentially ran as a Republican – some said he was a candidate in tune with President Trump.
Second, we have an impressive Democratic victory due to numerous nuances that may be replicated only in a few sections of the country in November. The question is: How many Conor Lambs are out there ready to run in competitive districts held by Republican House members?
A more relevant question may be: Was this 33-year-old first-time candidate running on a Democratic platform or a Republican platform? Neither. He was running on the disparate Conor Lamb platform, a convergence of liberal and conservative views that made him the rarest of breeds in 2018, a true political moderate.
Winning candidate rejected party leaders on both sides
What Democratic and Republican strategists refuse to acknowledge about this improbable win is that Lamb’s campaign rejected the leaders of both parties and blasted the “cartoonish campaigning” employed by Republican and Democratic PACs and outside groups.
“I think it’s clear that this Congress is not working for people,” he said. “I think we need new leadership on both sides.”
He distanced himself from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, saying that “the result of our (Democratic) congressional leadership has been to have people in the district dissatisfied with their performance.”
As for the GOP House speaker: “The real issue here is Paul Ryan. He’s the one who has declared that he’s coming after Medicaid and Social Security.”
Democrats who envision a corps of like-minded contenders cleaning up in November fail to recognize that Lamb was a quality candidate chosen by party leaders seeking a good fit for the district, not someone who survived a divisive primary where Bernie Sanders supporters tried to impose a purity test based on their left-wing ideology. Traditional party liberals, hungry for a win that would demonstrate Trump’s unpopularity, bit their tongues and chose Lamb as their nominee in the special election.
Meanwhile, House Republicans facing tough re-election campaigns who reflexively dismissed the western Pennsylvania outcome as an aberration heard Ryan declare in a closed-door GOP caucus meeting the next morning that the special election result “should serve as a wake-up call” to all GOP incumbents.
Some Republicans say he won because he was young, good-looking, telegenic, an ex-Marine captain, and a former federal prosecutor. Anybody who understands politics must admit that there is a lot of oomph to that claim. Dems who see Lamb-type candidates winning congressional swing districts across the nation in November might want to ponder: How many candidates do you have that present the pedigree of a youthful Marine-prosecutor-gun friendly contender with exceptional campaigning skills? The answer may be five, six, seven?
Was this campaign a test run, a road map for November? Is Lamb the new face of the 2018 national Democratic Party? Hardly.
Political parties cannot fathom a mix of political views
Sure, the stunning story line on Tuesday was that Pennsylvania’s 18th is a pro-Trump area where the president won by nearly 20 points in 2016 and GOP congressional candidates have had so little trouble succeeding that in the past two elections Democrats did not field a candidate. Yet, this was a unique race that may portend not much.
Enough issues-based arguments exist to bolster either side. Lamb opposed a ban on assault weapons and high-volume magazines. He personally opposes abortion, he’s anti-Pelosi and he favors trade tariffs like those imposed by Trump.
At the same time, the Ivy League grad favors universal health care, opposes the GOP tax plan, and warns against budget cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. As for those nuances mentioned above, Lamb pushes for expanded background checks on gun purchases, backs stronger labor unions, and supports a woman’s right to choose on abortion.
That last issue presents an awkward twist — an abortion contortion — for the GOP. For the past few decades, Republicans disparaged Democrats on moral grounds who said they were personally opposed to abortion but were OK with giving a woman the choice. Suddenly, that view became acceptable post-election this week when disappointed Republicans declared that Lamb wasn’t such a bad guy because he was “pro-life.”
The heterodoxy embodied by Lamb offers no tidy explanations for his success. And the special election win may be uniquely the product of western Pennsylvania’s politics – an amalgamation of working class and blue-collar, plus white-collar suburbanites.
So, what we have here is a mixed bag that is sure to create high anxiety among both parties, once strategists calm down and take a sober look at the outcome. With the right candidate, a variation of the Lamb approach might work in the Philadelphia suburbs, in the Detroit area or in Milwaukee and Madison? But how about in California or Florida or New York?
In Michigan, four congressional districts represented by Republicans have moved a bit to the left – less friendly territory for the GOP – in recent weeks, according to Professor Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rankings. Those far-flung districts are represented by Jack Bergman in the U.P., Mike Bishop in Oakland County, Tim Walberg in southern Michigan and Fred Upton in southwest Michigan. The Michigan Democratic Party still has about six weeks to recruit Michigan versions of Conor Lamb, if they can.
Two other factors stand out. The Republicans reportedly outspent the Dems by a 5-1 margin in the Pennsylvania 18th. How many other Democratic challengers could withstand an onslaught like that?
Also, labor unions played a big role in the Tuesday victory, even as their attempt to become a force in other hotly contested districts may fall flat. The labor movement is not a plus in marginally Red Districts in Texas or North Carolina. Just as an anti-Pelosi, pro-gun, ex-Marine may not receive a welcoming reception in many swing district Democratic primaries across the nation.
In the end, Lamb won a Keystone State district that embodied the kind of territory that was previously slipping away from the Democrats. But are Lamb-style campaigns nationwide the key to the Democrats taking control of the House in November? Someone has to explain to me how that key fits.