Tag: Conor Lamb

The Story:  Due to recent redistricting, the race for Pennsylvania's 17th Congressional District, the northwestern suburbs of Pittsburgh, pits one Congressional incumbent against another, Conor...

“Norbert?” he asked on the doorstep of a man who’d donated $25 to his campaign. A handful of candidates, including Phillips, are going a step further and refusing to take any PAC money at all, even if it comes from labor unions or fellow Democrats. In Minnesota, Phillips, a Democrat, has raised more than $2.3 million, 99 percent of it from individuals, and has used his no-PAC-money pledge to mount a formidable challenge in a district that Republicans have held since 1961. Trump also made corruption in Washington a central theme of his campaign and promised to “drain the swamp” of politicians who only do the bidding of their wealthy donors. The cycle perpetuates itself, he wrote, as members of Congress who serve on powerful committees attract more donations for their re-election campaigns. And Trump routinely endorses candidates who accept large amounts of money from corporate PACs. In 2016, only three of the 41 candidates on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “red-to-blue” list of the most competitive races made the no-corporate-PAC pledge, according to Adam Bozzi, communications director at End Citizens United, a group that supports an overhaul of campaign finance laws. In the last midterm election year, 2014, some 1.5 million small donors contributed a total of $335 million to Democratic campaigns across the country through ActBlue, an online platform that raises money for Democrats. Paulsen’s campaign has tried to make an issue of Phillips’ wealth. “He said, ‘I’m not taking any PAC money.

The ‘blue wave’ is not a tsunami, yet A Democratic win in Tuesday’s special election in Ohio’s traditionally Republican 12th congressional district would have provided yet another ill omen for GOP prospects of holding on to their House majority in the November midterms. Ohio special election: Republican scrapes ahead in tight race that tests Trump's clout Read more Balderson saw visits from both Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the final days of his campaign, and benefited from an investment of over $3m from the Paul Ryan-affiliated Super Pac the Congressional Leadership Fund. However, Republicans hold roughly 70 seats that are more Democratic-leaning and they will not be able to put in the same resources for every race in November. It continues the dramatic collapse in the Republican vote in suburban areas in the Trump era. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a doctor backed by both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez and benefiting from national media hype, lost by over 20 points to the former state senate leader Gretchen Whitmer. Bush lost by 20 points as well. Female candidates are making history Two more Democratic women earned gubernatorial nominations in Tuesday, with Whitmer winning in Michigan and the state senator Laura Kelly earning her party’s nomination in Kansas. Trump’s endorsement is not always a gift After a spree of endorsements via Twitter in which he instantly changed the trajectory of Republican primaries, Trump did not seem to maintain his Midas touch on Tuesday. Gains for women in US primaries set record, while 'right to work' is defeated Read more Although all of the candidates he endorsed or campaigned for were ahead, his support didn’t have the same impact as it did in other recent races, such as Brian Kemp’s successful bid for the Republican nomination for governor in Georgia, which ended in a landslide victory. While Democrats credited Trump’s campaign appearance for the Republican Rick Saccone in March’s special election in Pennsylvania for keeping the race close and juicing up rural turnout in that district, they had not seen the same impact in initial returns in Ohio, where the result hinged on O’Connor falling just short with prosperous suburban voters.

(CNN)The 2018 election is in 105 days. And the playing field continues to tilt toward Democrats. House seats in Democrats' favor -- eight of which went from a "leans Republican" rating to a "toss-up." That means that of the 36 races rated as "toss-ups" by the Center of Politics, 34 are held by Republicans. These moves are broadly consistent with how other non-partisan handicappers see the current state of play. The Cook Political Report carries 34 seats that are either "toss-ups" or lean toward party that doesn't currently control the seat; 31 of those are GOP districts. Inside Elections sees 26 Republican-held seats in serious jeopardy as compared to just 5 for Democrats. Even though President Donald Trump narrowly carried the seat in 2016, Lamb leads Rothfus 51% to 39% in a new Monmouth University poll. Add it all up -- and throw in the weight of history that suggests the President's party loses, on average, 33 seats in midterm elections -- and you have a devil's brew for Republicans. "Time is running out for Rs to turn things around."

The Story: On March 6, the voters of Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional district, by a very slim margin, elected Conor Lamb, a Democrat, as their new...

Today in 5 Lines After a nail-biter election, Democrat Conor Lamb declared victory over Republican Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania’s 18th district. Lamb is up by roughly 600 votes, and most outlets have said the race is too close to call. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reportedly reviewing a recommendation to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, just days before he’s scheduled to retire. CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow will replace Gary Cohn as the new director of the National Economic Council. Hundreds of students across the country participated in a walkout to protest gun violence and commemorate the victims of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, last month. The United Kingdom will expel 23 Russian diplomats after a Russian-made nerve agent was used in an attack on a former spy and his daughter. Today on The Atlantic What Pennsylvania Means: Conor Lamb’s apparent victory in Pennsylvania’s special election suggests that Republicans can expect a stiffer challenge in some blue-collar districts, but will be most vulnerable in suburban white-collar districts. (Ronald Brownstein) All the President’s Men: The White House, with the departure of Rex Tillerson, will become “more than ever the conniving and dishonest court of an unpredictable, ill-informed, and willful monarch,” writes Eliot A. Cohen. ‘Enhanced Interrogation’: A 2014 Senate report details exactly what happened at the Thailand “black site” run by Gina Haspel, Trump’s pick for CIA director. (Annabelle Timsit) Obama Is Partly to Blame: Adam Serwer explains why the former president bears some responsibility for Trump’s decision to appoint Gina Haspel to run the CIA.

Democratic congressional candidate Amy McGrath's first television ad which launches on March 15. https://www.amymcgrathforcongress.com/

LOS ANGELES — President Trump was hanging out here in the land of earthquakes, but he was 2,500 miles away from the tremor that really shook his party on Tuesday night. While the president hobnobbed with wealthy donors in the exclusive enclave of Beverly Park, the voters in the suburbs south of Pittsburgh were in revolt, giving the Democratic candidate a narrow lead in a special election in Pennsylvania that was taking on outsize proportions. While Republican turnout in a district that Mr. Trump won by 20 percentage points was healthy, Democrats showed once again that they could tap unions and other traditionally friendly groups to get their voters out in droves. The rebuke of Mr. Trump came from a part of western Pennsylvania that overwhelmingly supported him in 2016 and that typically would not seem likely to turn to a Democrat. The district is seen as so strongly Republican that the Democrats did not even field a candidate in recent years. At a rally Saturday, Mr. Trump mocked Mr. Lamb as “Lamb the Sham,” promised that Mr. Saccone would “vote for us all the time,” and rambled about his own achievements as he sought to transfer his own political success to the Republican candidate. Democratic enthusiasm appeared to overwhelm a part of the state that has long been a Republican stronghold. A deceptive video purported to show Mr. Lamb in a fight with labor unions. But in recent weeks, polls in Pennsylvania consistently showed Mr. Saccone’s popularity slipping, and Mr. Lamb gaining traction. Visits by Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials did little to buck up the party’s candidate.

MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s rally for a Pennsylvania Republican running in a special House election (all times local): 6:30 p.m. Republican Rick Saccone (suh-KOHN’) is embracing the politics of President Donald Trump as tightly as he can in the final days before a surprisingly competitive special congressional election in southwest Pennsylvania. Polls show Saccone in a tight race with Democrat Rick Saccone in a district that Trump won by 20 percentage points. Saccone is mocking reporters he says have asked him whether Trump is still popular in Pennsylvania. McDaniel credits Trump for “record unemployment” and bringing “3 million jobs back to America.” She also says the president “recognizes that manufacturing and steel belong in America and in Pennsylvania.” That appears to be a nod to the president’s decision to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. Both candidates in Pennsylvania’s 18th District, Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone (suh-KOHN’), have endorsed the tariffs. ___ 12:30 p.m. President Donald Trump is lending the weight of the White House to a congressional candidate who hopes to keep a Pittsburgh-area House seat in Republican hands. And the former eight-term incumbent, Tim Murphy, never had a close election, and didn’t even have a Democratic challenger in his last two elections. Murphy quit last fall after his hometown newspaper reported he had suggested a mistress get an abortion when they thought she might be pregnant. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Canada and Mexico are exempted from the tariffs, and other countries will reportedly be invited to negotiate exclusions from the measures. Arizona Senator Jeff Flake criticized the move in a statement, and pledged to draft and introduce legislation to nullify the tariffs. Trump told reporters that South Korea will be making a “major statement” about North Korea at 7 p.m. The Interior Department reportedly spent nearly $139,000 to upgrade doors in Secretary Ryan Zinke’s office. Today on The Atlantic One Right to Rule Them All? : Garrett Epps breaks down the text of the Second Amendment and concludes that it doesn’t guarantee “an unlimited individual right to bear any kind and number of weapons by anyone.” Colorless and Deadly: On Sunday, an ex-Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned in Britain by a nerve agent. Here’s how the gas works. (Sarah Zhang) We Can’t Handle the Truth: A new MIT study shows that, by every metric, falsehoods and fake news consistently reach more people than real news on Twitter. (Robinson Meyer) Does Welfare Make People Lazy? : Nope.