How The Pennsylvania Special Election Could Matter To Trump And Pelosi Filed under Pollapalooza

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Poll of the week

The special election on Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District isn’t the huge story that Alabama’s U.S. Senate race was. But the Keystone State campaign might still have implications beyond just deciding who will represent the people in this district in the U.S. House for the next 10 months.

Democratic candidate Conor Lamb, a former federal prosecutor, is essentially tied with Republican Rick Saccone, a Pennsylvania state representative, according to a couple of polls released this week. An Emerson College survey showed Lamb leading Saccone 48 percent to 45 percent. A Gravis Marketing poll had Saccone up 45 percent to 42 percent.

One piece of good news for Lamb (and potentially Democrats more generally): In the Emerson survey, 63 percent of Lamb’s backers reported that they were “very excited” to vote next week, compared with 53 percent of Saccone’s supporters. That could be a sign of greater enthusiasm on the Democratic side, as we have seen in other special elections in 2017 and 2018.

No single special election tells us that much about the national political environment. But politicos are watching these special elections, including the Pennsylvania race, so closely that they may have outsize implications. First, there’s the Democratic wave watch: President Trump carried the 18th District, which includes some Pittsburgh suburbs but also smaller towns bordering West Virginia, by almost 20 percentage points. So even a narrow loss by Lamb would reinforce the broader narrative of special elections since Trump’s inauguration — namely that Democrats are outperforming Republicans in races across the country and have a strong chance of winning the House in November.

This race could also affect the standing of two of the most important politicians in Washington: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Trump. Lamb has distanced himself from Pelosi, suggesting that if elected he would not vote for her to remain the Democrats’ leader in the House. A Lamb victory could embolden other Democrats running in this fall’s elections, particularly in more conservative-leaning areas, to make anti-Pelosi pledges. That could make it more difficult for Pelosi to remain as Democratic leader after November or to become speaker if her party wins control of the House.

What does Trump have riding on the Pennsylvania special election? Both Saccone and Lamb have spoken favorably about Trump’s proposal to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from certain countries, an idea that congressional Republicans have broadly rejected. And the president is going to Pennsylvania to campaign for the Republican candidate on Saturday. A Saccone win could help Trump politically and in terms of policy — showing that the president can boost a GOP congressional candidate in a key race and that one of his more unorthodox policy ideas (the tariffs) perhaps doesn’t hurt the party’s electoral chances.

But if Saccone loses, it would be the second special election in three months in which Trump campaigned hard for a GOP candidate only for him to lose. A few days before the December election in Alabama, Trump held a rally in Pensacola, Florida — less than 20 miles from the Alabama state line — and strongly urged voters to back GOP Senate hopeful Roy Moore. We all know how that turned out.

Other polling nuggets

Trump’s approval rating

Trump’s job approval rating is at 40.6 percent, while his disapproval rating is at 53.6 percent. Last week, his approval rating was 40.6 percent, compared with a disapproval rating of 54.1 percent.

The generic ballot

The Democrats hold a 47.7 percent to 38.8 percent advantage on the generic congressional ballot this week. Last week, Democrats were up 46.4 percent to 38.4 percent.