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Lamb Declares Victory in PA17

Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Allegheny) will get a second full term for this western PA district. 

Lamb declared victory over GOP challenger Sean Parnell in the race for the 17th Congressional District, on Wednesday night. 

Lamb leads by just under 1 point with 92% of votes reported, according to the New York Times. Lamb entered Wednesday trailing in the race, but clawed back and gained the lead on Wednesday evening

Parnell’s campaign issued a statement on Thursday morning criticizing Lamb for declaring victory.

“Last night, despite previously calling for every vote to be counted, Conor Lamb claimed victory practically the minute he took a slim lead in this race,” said Parnell campaign manager Andrew Brey. “Unless Lamb has a sixth sense that helps him precisely determine vote totals from outstanding precincts in this razor’s edge race, he should exercise the restraint that he was calling for while significantly behind.”

Although multiple national outlets rated this race in Lamb’s favor throughout the campaign, the race seemingly was closer than expected. Lamb won by double digits over Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Allegheny) in 2018. 

Unlike his 2018 bid, the GOP challenger proved to be a successful fundraiser with Parnell outraising Lamb in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2020, although Lamb narrowly edged him out in the final pre-general election filing. 

President Donald Trump seemingly took a personal interest in this race more than any other congressional showdown in the state by tweeting out his support for Parnell on multiple occasions and attempting to paint Lamb as a “puppet” of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Lamb consistently hit Parnell on opposing the Affordable Care Act, while the GOP challenger aimed to link the incumbent Democrat to the liberal win of the party in this swing district that narrowly supported Trump in 2016, although Biden appears to be outperforming Sec. Hillary Clinton in this race.

This story was updated with a comment from the Parnell campaign.

7 Responses

  1. “Rambo” Parnell can now go back to Faux news pimp his military service and books again.

  2. The one thing that has changed in the last 20 years or so is too many voters now vote strictly for their party candidate without consideration of the alternative. At one time, PA was famous for split ballot voting – electing a Democratic Governor while in the same your electing a Republican to the US Senate. The big problem now is this “I never vote for a Democrat“ or “I never vote for a Republican” attitude is that it is trickling down to PA state rep, county local and School boards and truly incompetent people are sitting as county row office elected officials, township supervisors, school directors etc, because voters aren’t voting for the best candidates, they are voting strictly for the name that has an R or D beside their name.

    1. I agree. I think they should no longer put the party me next to candidates. Then voters will have to actually research down ballot races( or they vote for president and skip those races)

  3. Great news for people in the congressional district 17!
    Great to send this Trump surrogate packing!!

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