Sandy asleep? Dems win a red seat.

[William Thornton]

Looks like the GOP laid a Hillary egg on this one. Bad candidate, bad campaign. Maybe the Repubs could whine about it for the next year or two and blame the Russkies.

[Haruo]

Obviously there is a real chance that the next Congress will be different in a wholesale way from the current one. Be interesting to see.

[Haruo]

The PA Supreme Court has redistricted the state in such a way that beginning this fall, congressional districts will be less prone to go Republican, too. (The state had one of the most egregious, and most pro-GOP, gerrymanderings around.)

[ET]

With a pro-life, pro-gun Democrat. Hadn't noticed before in the coverage - or maybe just hadn't thought about it - that the guy will have to run again in November.

November could be interesting. Predictions flying around all over the place.

[Haruo]

I just looked at the and it's even weirder than last night's result vs Trump's 20% margin. The last TWO elections there, 2014 and 1016, the previous congressman, Tim Murphy of "I'm absolutely extremely pro life/Honey, why don't you just abort our baby" infamy, ran UNOPPOSED. There was no non-GOP candidate on the ballot. It was like Stalin's Russia. And now it's probably going to a 30-something Democrat.

[KeithE]

[ET]

[Sandy]

Not asleep, just a little busy and pre-occupied at the moment. At any rate, this is becoming so routine, I wasn't sure there'd be much discussion. Though I don't live in that particular district, it is in the Pittsburgh television market so I've been bombarded by endless ads.

In spite of all kinds of spin on the analysis, this is what it looks like. A moderate Democrat won a congressional district that was one of the deepest, reddest in the state, and one of the most gerrymandered. Trump won it by 20 in 2016, Romney by 17 in 2012. The former congressman in that district, Tim Murphy, was a conservative, vocally pro-life Republican who had to step down because he asked his mistress to have an abortion after he got her pregnant. He ran unopposed last time around.

It is what everything else has been in special elections across the country, a prime example of a major shift away from Trump that is most likely a national phenomenon. Starting with Ossoff gaining 18 percentage points and almost taking a gerrymandered deep red district in Georgia, the Democrats have picked up congressional, senate and state house seats in a wide variety of places, mostly "Trump country," or at least, red states. There seems to be hesitation on the part of the media sources considered on the "left," to call this what it is. It's still early but it is a trend, and if you count the number of congressional districts across the country where a Republican holds a seat with a smaller Republican base than this one, it comes out to something like 110.

Notwithstanding the fact that Trump and Pence came twice, and Don Jr. on the Monday before the election, even if the remaining few absentee ballots (fewer than 1,000 by last count) overcome Lamb's 625 vote margin, this was a crushing, devastating, destructive defeat. The GOP sank more than $10 million of its precious reserve of congressional election fund into this race, to win a symbolic victory in a district that will be drastically redrawn for the 2016 election. Lamb lives in the re-drawn district, which will include a much larger chunk of heavily Democratic Allegheny County, and which will lose all of heavily Republican Westmoreland County. Saccone lives in Washington County, which became much more Democratic in this cycle. Since Trump came twice to help Saccone, and so did Pence, and Donald Jr. was here on Monday, I think you can call this a referendum on Trump, and you can say it was a devastating, disastrous one. You could have said that if the outcome had been this close the other way. The exit polling is pretty clear. There's no real excitement about the alleged tax cut bill. People don't believe the economy is better than it was under Obama. The steel industry benefits, but a lot of other related industries are worried about the prices and the effect of loss of trade resulting from it. And all those coal miners in Washington county are still waiting for Trump to deliver on promises, so they shifted their votes, doubling the county's democratic turnout.

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

No, Trump HAS made a move that looks like bailing out the jobless coal miners. He's going to get them jobs in the steel and aluminum mines that are revving up in the wake of the stock market jitters.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

[Sandy]

A few notes since Lamb has been declared the winner.

Counting the super pacs and party funds, the Saccone campaign spent $14 million. Lamb spent $3 million. Of the issues which might have been a factor, health care was at the top of the list in the exit polls. Most of those went to Lamb, as did a majority of those for whom jobs and the economy were primary issues. Washington and Greene counties, which both lie mostly inside this district, saw a major shift in votes from Republican in 2016 to Democrat this time around. They both have a lot of coal miners, and a scattering of steel workers. The district that Saccone represents in Harrisburg is, ironically, mostly made up of those two counties. That's where he, theoretically, should have won this, but it's where he lost it.

Lamb did criticize the tax break, but made a bigger deal out of the fact that it could have been larger if the billionaires and Trump hadn't grabbed off most of it for themselves. That played well. Joe Biden came to campaign with him. That helped. Obama's voice was featured in robocalls, and in a few ads, and endorsed him several weeks ago when he was trailing by eight points in the polls. That helped. I think the Trump/Pence/Trump Jr. appearances with Saccone, especially the Trump rally right before election day, helped turn the difference in the vote that gave Lamb the win.

So now, Saccone was a poor candidate and didn't run a good campaign. Why would the Republicans spend that much money, with diminishing contributions in their congressional election fund, to hold a seat that will drastically change by November? Both Lamb and Saccone live in what will be the newly drawn District 18 for the next election cycle. It will lose all of heavily Republican Westmoreland County, will retain heavily Democratic Allegheny County, add about 40 precincts from the southern side of Pittsburgh, which is heavily Democratic, and would likely have been hostile territory for Saccone.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

In spite of the now-predictable GOP whining about illegals voting, and irregularities, and fraud for which there isn't a jot or tittle of proof, Saccone conceded. The mostly Republican group of county clerks certified the election, found about six legitimate claims to investigate regarding voter "irregularities," and since a recount is not mandated, the Saccone campaign and the flat broke PA GOP don't want to front the money for the legal fees and costs of doing one.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... spartandhp

I had said previously that Lamb would probably run in the redrawn 18th district, because he lives there. Actually, his part of the 18th will now be part of the 17th, along with a big chunk of the south side of Pittsburgh. The 17th is currently represented by Republican Keith Rothfus, and was carefully drawn around the city to isolate a high percentage of Democrats in a single, overpopulated district, while making the 17th more Republican than Democrat. Rothfus initially lost his first run in 2012, but got the seat in 2014 by a narrow margin. The new lines make the district pretty even in partisan registration, and with Lamb's announcement, the pollsters say Lamb is already even odds. Six months of campaigning between Lamb, who is pretty dynamic, down to earth, and talks directly to people will, IMHO, give him a significant advantage over the less than dynamic, less than enthusiastic, relatively unexciting and very dull Rothfus, who has little ability to speak, especially to people and who doesn't seem to have much enthusiastic support among his own party.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... 4c368c5da5

[Haruo]

How many million illegals do you suppose voted for Putin's opponents?