ELIZABETH TOWNSHIP, Pa. ― A special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District was still too close to call Tuesday night, although the fact that it was this close at all was bad news for Republicans. It was a district that Donald Trump won by nearly 20 points in 2016, and the GOP should have easily held on to it.
According to some Republicans, the fact that they were on the verge of losing wasn’t because their messaging was weak or the president had created an incredible backlash effect. And it certainly didn’t mean that Democrats were going to dominate at the polls in November.
All it means, at least according to these strategists, is that their candidate running in Pennsylvania’s 18th District sucked. State Rep. Rick Saccone was horrible, and it’s his fault the GOP was embarrassed nationally.
“He came across as establishment. And I think that’s part of the problem,” said Jason Miller, a former aide to Trump’s campaign, in a CNN interview Tuesday. “He’s in the Statehouse. He very much sounds like he’s already part of Washington. You flip on the TV there … and a lot of it looks really cookie-cutter, like, we’re Washington, and we’re here to help.”
But other Republicans thought he could have used a bit more polish.
“This may not be nice to say: The fact is that the Saccone campaign was a joke. If we had a candidate who could walk and chew gum at the same time, we would have [easily] won the race,” said Corry Bliss, executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC, in a statement.
An anonymous Pennsylvania GOP strategist told The Washington Examiner they had a very specific complaint about Saccone: His moustache was disgusting.
″It’s a porn stache,” the strategist said. – READ MORE
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