The GOP's messages dont seem to be working in Pennsylvania. Is that a warning sign? [View all]

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Democrat Conor Lamb is spending more $$ on air the final week of the PA18 campaign ($1.2 million) than Republican Saccone raised the entire campaign. https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/powerpost/the-gops-messages-dont-seem-to-be-working-in-pennsylvania-is-that-a-warning-sign/2018/03/09/83f0a47e-231a-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.02b6a16486f2&__twitter_impression=true …

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The GOP’s messages don’t seem to be working in Pennsylvania. Is that a warning sign?

By Paul Kane

March 10, 2018 at 8:00 AM

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Republicans and their outside allies have thrown almost everything at Conor Lamb, the 33-year-old Democrat who’s running against Rick Saccone, a Republican veteran of Pennsylvania’s state legislature. They tried to tar Lamb as a clone of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as a liberal who would raise their taxes and, lately, as a former federal prosecutor who was soft on illegal immigration.

But those messages have not done the damage Republicans had been hoping for — Lamb and Saccone are running neck and neck. It should have been a cakewalk in a House district that President Trump won by 20 percentage points in 2016.

Attacking Lamb on Pelosi and on taxes seemed to have promise. One poll showed 60 percent of voters in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District had an unfavorable view of Pelosi, while another pegged the figure at 65 percent, according to GOP polling shared with The Washington Post. In addition, surveys have found increasing popularity for the $1.5 trillion tax cut amid media stories about worker bonuses and salary increases.

However, Lamb’s call for a nonpartisan, results-oriented Congress with new leadership — he pledged to oppose Pelosi in future leadership races — has risen above the negative advertising coming from Washington-based GOP groups. He defined himself right away in the race as a Marine who likes to hunt with rifles who then became an assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted bad guys.
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Paul Kane is The Washington Post's senior congressional correspondent and columnist. His column about the 115th Congress, @PKCapitol, appears throughout the week and on Sundays.