Pennsylvania: Lamb Or Fetterman?
Who's The Right 2022 Nominee
Is Conor Lamb a good candidate?
This question is harder to answer than you think, because depending on what you look at, the answer is either a definitive yes or a resounding no. In 2018, he faced two campaigns - a special election he won in a heavily Trump district, and then a redrawn, incumbent v incumbent fight in his current, more suburban district, which he won easily. Both 2018 results were genuinely impressive - winning a Trump +20 district in his special, and then winning a district Hillary lost by nearly 3% by 12% - and they show a man who has an appeal beyond what you’d expect from either national environment or district partisanship.
And then in 2020, he underran Biden by about half a point and only won by 2%.
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I highly, highly doubt Lamb became a substantially different - and let’s be frank, worse - candidate in two years, so the question becomes not whether he was a good candidate then and now suddenly is a bad one, but which of those results are more meaningful. And honestly? I can’t say for sure I’m right. If Lamb is the candidate he was in 2018, with an ability to do better in the exurban areas without stopping the suburban realignment, then he’s the obvious choice in Pennsylvania, and should be the Senate candidate, full stop. If he is the candidate from 2020, Fetterman, whatever his ills, should be the nominee. And trying to figure out the answer to that question is really fucking hard.
The case for 2018 being the outlier is pretty easy to make, even if it isn’t necessarily that believable. Lamb ran and won in a low turnout special where differential turnout and a bad national environment saw the GOP lose a seat they shouldn’t have, and wouldn’t have at a normal midterm, and then in the midterms the GOP decided to bail on his opponent and that’s why he won as big as he did. The argument basically goes that Lamb got lucky twice, and then in 2020, his true baseline was revealed. It’s a compelling(-ish) argument, until you get to the point where Lamb had just under $8M in outside spending thrown at him from the GOP, with America First, Congressional Leadership Fund, the RNC, and the NRCC all putting in 7 figure ad buys against Lamb in 2018. Between campaign cash and the outside sources, Lamb didn’t really outspend his opponent, he just kicked his ass.
The case for 2020 being the outlier is actually more intuitive - basically, the argument goes, he bought his own bullshit. He looked at the polls, he looked at the blue wave that everyone thought was coming, and he thought he was safe. He raised less money, he spent less money, and by all the metrics of caring, he cared less in 2020. He thought he was going to win, and so he didn't go balls to the wall in the way he did in either of his 2017 races. It's plausible that a member could get caught in that way - he definitely wasn't the only Democrat who thought they were cruising home who either nearly got caught (or, in some cases, did get caught), after all. If 2020 is the aberration, then 2018 suggests he would be a very good nominee.
This is not a question with a clear and definitive right answer, but if you think Lamb should be the nominee, you think 2020 was an aberration. If you want Fetterman, then the hope is that the relatively untested nature of Fetterman as a statewide candidate of his own merits is better than a candidate with a deeply unimpressive 2020 result. The race is decidedly between the two titans of Western Pennsylvania, with absolutely zero apologies to everybody else, and the choice Democrats have to make is whether or not a gamble on Fetterman makes as much sense as a candidate with very good upside, and a much higher floor.
Lamb has shown some ability - in both 2018 races - to appeal to working class, non-degree holding whites, and in his second 2018 race, doing so without doing badly in the suburbs. The theory of a Lamb candidacy is fairly simple - close to Biden numbers in the Philly collar, better than Biden numbers in Philly and Pittsburgh proper, a "home district" effect in the Pittsburgh suburbs, and then do slightly better in the rurals and small towns. It's coherent as a vision, given Lamb's moderate temperament and lack of any reason the suburbs would hate him, which is not to say it will necessarily work. But it is something.
Fetterman's path is a bit more complicated, because it's a throwback coalition in a way Lamb's isn't. Fetterman won't get the same margins in the Philly collar because of his polarizing nature, left wing stances, and history, so he is more reliant on the white rurals to turn out. Can he rely on that? I don't know, maybe. Trumpian, low propensity whites won't turn out, but who was the last candidate for federal office who turned back the clock? Not Manchin, Tester, or Brown, all of whom's coalitions got much more suburban from their first wins in 2006 to their last win in 2018.
I used to be very high on Fetterman, and even after the resurfaced revelations about his conduct in regards to a Black teenager when he was Mayor of NowhereLand, PA, I still thought he was the best candidate, even over Lamb. But as the months have gone on, something has stuck in my head that I can't get out - the idea that the dream Fetterman coalition, where we advance greatly in the suburbs and claw back the exurbs and rurals - is a fraud. It's a fantasy, and it's the inverse of the strategy I argue can't be relied upon if you're the GOP. The theory of Fetterman is appealing, but so was the theory of a whole lot of candidates last time. Yes, Lamb wants to revive Democratic fortunes in the rurals too, but the difference is, Lamb doesn't need the rural strength to the same degree to win as Fetterman does. And, plainly, I would rather trust the coalition of voters we have coming to us than the coalition of voters running away from us.
If Fetterman's the nominee, it's a Democratic-leaning tossup. If Lamb's the nominee, Democrats are favourites to win the seat. Conor Lamb is the right Democrat for Pennsylvania, and hopefully he'll make a great Senator.