By Kenzie Park-Hubb
In the latest Pennsylvania election, Conor Lamb, the Democratic candidate and Rick Saccone, the Republican candidate, each ran for a spot in Congress. Saccone, the predicted winner, did not come out of this election victorious. This was a shock to many due to the fact that the area they were campaigning in voted for Donald Trump.
Trump dominated this district by twenty percent in the 2016 Presidential election. People called this election a nail biter until the end, with Lamb winning by only a little less than seven-hundred points, according to NBC News. According to the same source, Democrats were eager to get to the polls to vote against Republicans.
In an interview with NBC, Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist stated, “We can win even the reddest districts if we recruit candidates who fit them.” Smith feels as though this is a very big victory, especially since it is such a “red state.”
Due to the fact that Trump supported Saccone, did not help him at all. Democrats strong hatred for him caused them to rush to the polls and vote. Lamb did not need to remind the voters what they were coming out to vote against due to a rising passionate feeling in voters, according to NBC.
Lamb also ran as more of a moderate, which also captures a great amount of the conservative vote, along with the liberal vote. Even though he is still a moderate, it is still a huge step for the dominant Republican House.
According to NBC News, experts are beginning to predict that this will cause Democrats to slowly gain back the power of the House, something they have not had since before 2002.
Another reason this was such an important occurrence is because it happened after the Gerrymandering case. To elaborate, Republicans set the district lines so that they will gain the vote of the majority.
Now that the lines have been reset, it shows the impact that these district lines had on the elections in the past. Going forward, it is made clear that they had a favoring party and it is only now getting repaired.