The absentee votes are counted. Lamb leads by 627 votes.
_Counting of the election day and absentee votes in PA-18 is now complete, and Democrat Conor Lamb is poised for a stunning upset with a 627-vote lead over Republican Rick Saccone. _
There are some remaining votes to be counted – provisional ballots and any military or overseas ballots, which may currently still be in the mail but must be received by the counties by March 20.
There is no mandatory recount for this district, but a candidate may request a recount by precinct with petitions from voters. They have five days after the county completes its computation to do so.
Here are the current vote totals, with 100% of precincts reporting: •Conor Lamb, Democrat: 113,813 – 49.8% •Rick Saccone, Republican: 113,186 – 49.6% •Miller, Libertarian: 1,379 – 0.6%
Pretty bog-standard moderate Democrat, which is perfectly fine! I will take a dude who’s going to vote with the left flank of the party a mere 85% of the time, opposed to someone who will vote with the left flank 0% of the time. What’s lame is trying to make some sort of point about ideological valence, while ignoring the many mitigating factors in Lamb’s background that helped him in the race, like being from a local political dynasty.
Instead of focusing on the candidates, the focus should be on turnout; we never have the level of turnout for midterm elections that the special election drew last night, imagine how easy it would be to flip districts if we could convince people that they were all races were as important as this special election for a seat that’s only going to be around for a couple months.
Yes, the seat may change when the districts change, but given that Lamb was able to squeak out a victory while the district was illegally gerrymandered to aid Republicans, hopefully the Democrats will have an easier time of it when it’s corrected in November.
Agreed. I think that is pretty much what I said. Lamb talked about issues important to the local voters. Siccone clung to Trump to the point of bringing multiple Trumplings in to campaign for him. Res ipsat loquitor.
Not sure that is completely applicable (of course, YMMV) as here in VA Danica Roem won largely by NOT making her trans status an election issue, sticking to issues like local highway policy, and letting her opponent intentionally misgender her, act like an ass and generally drive even Republicans into her camp. That is the lesson that we need to drive home.
Unless the Russian hackers come into play. What happens when the rupgnantcans maintain control of the Senate and Congress even though it is glaringly obvious, even to the GOP that hacking had occurred? Will Amerikans simply ignore it and continue to binge watch their favorite shows and update their facebook as if this is all normal? I wonder.
You would have to ask her if she “suppressed” her identity. I think she did not. It was and is commonly known that she is transgender. I think (yes, my opinion) that her winning strategy is “this is who I am, now lets talk about issues that matter to you.” Her opponent ranted about the scary scary trans thing that would rape your husbands and children, while she talked about things that the voters actually cared about. The fact that she is trans was known, but not an issue that she ran on.
I’m talking more about age demographics. Voters under 30, even in conservative areas, aren’t buying the right-wing talking points in the way Boomers and older do. Things like a candidate’s trans status or personal views on abortion don’t matter to them.
We’re at a critical junction in the next five years, no doubt. The GOP is doing everything it can to cheat and disenfranchise voters, and there are worse authoritarian elements trying to undermine liberal democracy itself.
From last night:
“Jason Miller [the Trumper] on CNN right now saying Saccone came across as establishment and not close enough to Trump.
Saccone literally said he was ‘Trump before Trump!’”
Absolutely could not agree more with this statement. Huge reason why purity tests and party orthodoxy are poisonous right now. This is less about can we retain the gains made over the last 8 years and more can we retain our democracy at all.
Lamb will have the seat till the end of the term. Which I think is up at the end of the year.
Under that new court ordered congressional map. The geographic area in this district is going to be split between two of the new districts. Based on their residencies Saccone would have been in one. Lamb in the other. And each of those districts will be more competitive than they once were. But each also has a well liked and deeply embedded incumbant who’s running, And multiple well funded primary challengers. So whoever wins, And it looks like maybe lamb. Will basically be jumping right into a new series of campaigns. On wholly different grounds and a group of voters they haven’t dealt with and won’t really get the chance to represent.
It’s kind of anyone’s guess what’s gonna happen. The loser gets another chance to run in November. The winner has to compete to keep their seat immediately. Both will be facing a new, untested district. Both will still be new presences in the area in question. Both have to compete with multiple less weird options on the ballot.
So really the only information were getting out of this is that a democrat. Whatever sort (and seriously this guy is an old school blue dog dem). Just beat a republican of any kind. In a district custom built to be a lock for the GOP. More so then how much they for went for Trump that’s interesting. PA is one of the most gerrymandered states and this was one of its more anomalous, non competitive districts.
I’ve been reading in several places how this district was gerrymandered. It is my understanding that gerrymandering made it so the GOP would win with small margins in more districts, while Dems would win big in a few districts. However, that’s not what happened here in 2016; Trump won by 20 points. It seems to me that if this district was gerrymandered to aid the Republicans, whoever drew the district lines did a horrible job. The idea is not to win a district by 20 points; it’s to win 5 districts by 4 points each.
Edit: I’m not saying Pennsylvania wasn’t gerrymandered. SCOTUS says it was, and that’s enough for me.
