March 13, 2018

Democrat Leads in District Trump Won by 20 Points

Wave?

Republican Rick Saccone at a campaign rally with President Donald TrumpKeith Srakocic/AP

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The vote-counting stretched into Wednesday morning in Pennsylvania, where Democrat Conor Lamb narrowly leads Republican Rick Saccone in a congressional district that President Donald Trump carried by 20 points. Our own Clint Hendler spent Tuesday evening at the Hilton Garden Inn in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, where Lamb supporters gathered to watch the results. Check out live coverage from him and others below.

Update 10

Most news outlets are still saying the race is to close to call, but Lamb declared victory early Wednesday morning. “It took a little longer than we thought,” he told cheering supporters. “But we did it.”

As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Wednesday morning, Lamb’s lead does appear to be holding, for now:

With 100 percent of the vote count in, Mr. Lamb was ahead by more than 600 votes. However, absentee and provisional ballots were still being counted overnight. Washington County finished tallying early Wednesday morning, showing Lamb with 609 votes and Saccone, 547.

Greene County absentee votes were still out.

[…]

If the race is still too close to call after the absentee ballots are counted, voters or candidates could call for a recount or recanvass of votes, but the process is onerous. Voters have until officials are done with the computation of the votes on Friday to file a challenge with their county Board of Elections. The computation includes the counting of absentee ballots.

Update 9

As of 11:40 pm ET, the race was still too close to call, with Lamb clinging to a lead of fewer than 900 votes. The AP has said it won’t be projecting a winner tonight:

Update 8

Not much left to count. Still incredibly close.

But are they playing “Fight Song,” Clint?

Update 7

The race is getting pretty tight:

Update 6

Bad news for anyone following the infamous New York Times needle. But the good news is that Clint’s tweets will be unaffected.

Wasserman points to the same issue with the way results are being reported. Looks like we’ll just have to wait for them to count the actual votes.

Update 5

Meanwhile, Lamb supporters are still seem confident:

Update 4

Update 3

The New York Times’ Nate Cohn says we could be in for a late night:

Update 2

Here’s some more early data from the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman:

Update 1

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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