Conor Lamb, the Democratic candidate for the special election in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District. Photo / AP
Conor Lamb, the Democratic candidate for the special election in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District. Photo / AP
That sound you hear echoing around Washington is a whole bunch of people exclaiming, "What does it mean?"
We don't even have an official winner in the Pennsylvania special election, but that hasn't delayed the kind of GOP hand-wringing that usually comes after a devastating defeat. With all absentee ballots counted, Democrat Conor Lamb leads by 627 votes.
With so many data points flying around, I thought it worth putting a few of them in context.
119
That's how many districts held by Republicans were more competitive in the 2016 presidential election than Pennsylvania's 18th.
Except. Except this is a special election. Turnout is lower. There is no incumbent. Parties win crazy races in special elections that they can't win (and often don't even try to win) in good election years. Republicans win in Hawaii and Massachusetts. Democrats win in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana.
That doesn't mean this isn't a good sign for Democrats; it most certainly is.
But it's more a suggestion that the universe of winnable seats in November is big rather than that it includes seats like this one. And yesterday didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know on that front, as the next number shows.
Republican Rick Saccone, left, and his wife Yong Saccone. Photo / AP
20
That's the shift in margin from Trump's 58-38 win here in 2016 to the result yesterday - regardless of whether Lamb, or Rick Saccone, R, officially wins. And that's a big shift.
Here's the thing, though: It's entirely in keeping with just about everything we've seen since the 2016 election.
The margin shift is similar to what we saw in Kansas's 4th District (where the Democrat bettered Hillary Clinton's margin of defeat by 21 points), Montana's at-large district (15 points), South Carolina's 5th District (15) and the Alabama Senate race (29). And special elections for state legislature seats have often seen even bigger shifts.
In other words, if Republicans decided now that it's time to start panicking, what took them so long? This is almost completely par for the course.
The only real differences are whether the shift got them a win and the race's proximity to the 2018 election.
Plenty of Republicans are pointing to the fundraising disparity faced by Saccone. And these are real numbers that matter when it comes to winning races.
But if the argument is that Republicans were outspent, that's just not true. Outside groups vastly outspent Democrats, giving Saccone more than enough air-cover.
If the argument is that Saccone was a bad candidate, that's fairer.
Fundraising is a big part of succeeding and demonstrating your quality.
The fact that Saccone got swamped on it by Lamb in a high-profile special election suggests that GOP griping about his candidacy isn't completely without merit.
Conor Lamb campaigned pro-union, pro-background checks, pro-universal health care, anti-tax cuts.
A big problem for conservatives right now, and I count my conservative friends, is that they are running against a version of the Democratic Party that exists solely in their heads. https://t.co/lwUpK4B6rc
