How face to face engagement can cause a political upset
How do upsets happen? And what do they mean?
How did the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus (UMBC) men’s basketball team humiliate the top-seeded University of Virginia?
How did the Philadelphia Eagles outlast the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII?
And how, in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, in a part of the state that went bright red in 2016 did Democrat Conor Lamb beat better-funded, Trump-supported Republican Rick Saccone?
Lamb won because he ran a better campaign. In the heart of what was once steel country, Lamb put unions and union workers at the center of his campaign; Saccone didn’t even ask for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)’s endorsement.
In a district full of hunters and gun owners, Lamb opposed most kinds of proposed gun regulation, even–and most visibly–after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
When Republicans tried to tie Lamb to the right-wing’s bogeywoman Nancy Pelosi, Lamb declared he would not support her for the House Speakership. On abortion, Lamb struck the Catholic Democrat’s moderate position, saying he does not support abortion but respects its legality.
And even with all that moderation, Lamb drew support from every wing of the Democratic party: Joe Biden campaigned for him, progressives like John Fetterman supported him, and, pivotally, Democratic voters turned out for him far more than Republicans did for Saccone.
Lamb’s finesse feels like luck, and maybe it is. Maybe it’s a look at what center-left politics can look like: hyper-local, grassroots, inclusive and effectively messaged.
Each of these issue stances, on one level, showed voters that Lamb could prioritize his constituents’ values over his party’s ideology–running for the House of Representatives, Lamb showed he could, well, represent the people.
Saccone’s campaign was oddly cookie cutter-he praised the tax plan passed last year by Congressional Republicans, and styled himself as “Trump before Trump was Trump.” This was a misfire: Saccone’s campaign thought that, in 2016, 18th District voters were excited by Trump and Trump’s policies; they weren’t. They were excited because they thought a candidate finally stood with them. Lamb knew that, ran on that and won with it.
Beyond the specific issues, Lamb’s moderate positions also made him seem pragmatic and practical. By breaking from the party, even on minor issues, Lamb made his other, more conventional stances seem less like partisan positions and more like realistic solutions for the community.
Adding to this was Lamb’s own persona: he’s a local son who went to the University of Pennsylvania, went to war and then took drug dealers to court amid an opioid epidemic that’s a vivid reality to much of the district. When a guy like that comes to your door, shakes your hand, gets your union’s endorsement and lays out a platform you hadn’t heard from a Democrat in ages, you will almost certainly find him credible and maybe even worthy of your vote. That happened in enough households across the 18th District to make Conor Lamb the first Democrat in a generation to win there.
That win, of course, isn’t the most consequential. Pennsylvania’s new Congressional maps put Lamb into the new 17th District, where he’ll now run against another hardline conservative Republican, Representative Keith Rothfus.
But when 230,000 Pennsylvanians shock the nation with their votes, there is a lesson to learn. Lamb’s campaign found a way to win by starting and ending face to face with voters, ideologically and literally.
UMBC beat Virginia after surviving a season of hard practice and tough wins. The Eagles beat the Patriots with team unity and a few trick plays. Lamb’s campaign is a reminder that upsets aren’t accidents.
His campaign gave Democrats a practical map to riding the “Blue Wave:” forget complete ideological purity, match the energy of your most engaged citizens, tailor your platform to the specific electorate, stay unified and find candidates who can do all that convincingly. Clearly, a lot has to go right. But that’s how upsets work.