TEHRAN, March 14 - A U.S. House of Representatives election in Pennsylvania that is seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump’s performance was a dead heat on Tuesday, an ominous sign for Republicans eight months ahead of congressional elections.
TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) -A U.S. House of Representatives election in Pennsylvania that is seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump’s performance was a dead heat on Tuesday, an ominous sign for Republicans eight months ahead of congressional elections.
The district was previously a solidly Republican one that Trump won by almost 20 points in the 2016 presidential election.
However, official results from Tuesday showed moderate Democrat Conor Lamb leading conservative Republican Rick Saccone by a fraction of a percentage point with votes counted from 100 percent of precincts. Election officials began counting several thousand absentee ballots to decide the result.
“We’re still fighting the fight. It’s not over yet. We’re going to fight all the way to the end. You know I never give up,” Saccone told cheering supporters as late results trickled in.
Win or lose, the strong showing by Lamb, a 33-year-old Marine veteran, buoys Democrats nationally as they seek to win control of the U.S. House from Republicans in the November midterm elections.
“This is one extra indicator that confirms a fairly pro-Democratic environment, pro-Democratic enough that the House should be in play. Democrats should be able to compete in a lot of different places across the country,” said Kyle Kondik, an analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
MODERATE DEMOCRAT
Republican dominance had been so strong in the district, a patchwork of small towns, farms and Pittsburgh suburbs, that Democrats ran no candidates in the previous two U.S. House elections here. Lamb’s image as a moderate seemed to have worked in his favor.
Saccone, 60, a state legislator who has described himself as “Trump before Trump was Trump,” led the race by more than 10 percentage points in January.
But Lamb, a pro-gun Democrat with strong backing from unions, has since surged in polls as Democratic voters sensed a chance to show their opposition to Trump.
Saccone, a former Air Force counter-intelligence officer, drew criticism toward the end of the campaign by saying that some of his opponents “have a hatred for God.”
Source: Reuters
Your Comment