With narrow lead U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb declares victory over Republican challenger Sean Parnell

U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb declared victory Wednesday night as incomplete results showed the Democratic incumbent take a whisker-close lead over Republican challenger Sean Parnell, with barely 700 votes separating the candidates in the hotly watched race for the 17th Congressional District.

By noon Thursday, Lamb’s lead had grown to about 4,300 votes, with the incumbent having won 50.5% of the votes counted compared to Parnell’s 49.5%, according to unofficial tallies reported by the state.

Parnell, 39, is a Murrysville native who recently moved from Cranberry to Ohio Township. He is an former Army Ranger platoon leader in Afghanistan and Fox News contributor.

After leading by 6 to 14 percentage points Tuesday night and into Wednesday afternoon, Parnell lost the reported lead to Lamb by 10:30 p.m., when just 841 votes separated the candidates.

By 12:30 a.m. Thursday, Lamb retained an edge over Parnell of 711 votes.

Still too close too call

The race was still too close to call — there are still tens of thousands of ballots remaining uncounted across Western Pennsylvania.

But with the margin narrowing and mail-in ballots leaning Democratic, Lamb did so anyway, declaring victory shortly after 10 p.m.

Attempts to reach Parnell and his staff were unsuccessful.

Lamb said during his remarks outside a Steamfitters hall in Pittsburgh’s Duquesne Heights neighborhood that he had not heard from Parnell.

Lamb spoke against an American flag backdrop flanked by digital signs that read, “We did it!” and “You did it!” He emphasized unity and making government “work again.”

“I know that many of our fellow Americans have different views. I know that there is a very real lack of trust in our government, in politics, in politicians, and even in each other,” Lamb said. “But I still believe that we can ease these tensions among ourselves by choosing to focus on the goals that we all really do share.” He mentioned affordable health care, good-paying jobs for all and mitigating the impact of climate change.

Lamb said that Congress has work to do to show that government can “be a force for good in American life.”

“We can demand that our leaders respect each other and the people that they represent. We can demand that they tell the truth. And we can demand that they put working people and the men and women of our unions ahead of special interests,” Lamb said. “You have demanded that from me, and you can always expect that from me.”

Lamb: “Many of our fellow Americans have different views. I know that there is a very real lack of trust in our gov’t, in politics, in politicians, even in each other.

I still believe that we can ease these tensions by choosing to focus on the goals that we all really do share.” pic.twitter.com/yl1bK2HKpG

— Natasha Lindstrom (@NewsNatasha) November 5, 2020

If Parnell should win

If Parnell pulled off a win, it would be considered a major boon for the first-time political candidate and Republicans over the incumbent, whom Trump has derided as “Nancy Pelosi’s little Lamb.”

Lamb, 36, a Mt. Lebanon Democrat and former federal prosecutor and Marine Corps officer, became deemed as a “golden boy” and “rising star” Democrat with high potential to do well with moderate-leaning Democrats and some Republican voters.

“The reason his loss would be disappointing for Democrats is that he is the type of Democrat that they need to be able to win in rural and suburban districts in the Rust Belt and other places,” said Jeff Gulati, political science professor at Bentley University in Massachusetts. “It is a reach in most cases, but really their only chance right now.”

But with so much unknown about uncounted ballots, experts still are not sure that will happen: “Looking at the margin and raw votes, it is likely that Lamb could pull it out,” said Gulati, who was interviewed when Parnell still had a lead of less than 2,000 votes.

It was unclear how many ballots were left to be counted in the district that spans three counties — about half of Allegheny County with suburbs to the south, west and north of Pittsburgh, including the Alle-Kiski Valley; part of Butler County; and all of Beaver County.

Earlier in the day, as of 4 p.m., Parnell had collected 53.2% of the votes counted compared to Lamb’s 46.8%, a margin of nearly 23,000 votes, the Pennsylvania Department of State reported.

About 10 hours earlier, Parnell had led by about 14 percentage points.

The state has said it could be days until all eligible votes get tallied.

Trump voters boost buoys Parnell campaign

Political observers who thought Lamb’s seat was safe — despite Parnell out-fundraising Lamb, aggressively door-to-door canvassing and making high-profile appearances at Trump events in recent weeks — say they’re surprised by how close the race has proved. They credit a surge in Trump supporters who stayed home two years ago and fierce party loyalty among Republicans who outperformed Democrats in voter registration this cycle.

“Trump being on the ballot brought out his voters, and not just traditional Republicans, but Trump Republicans,” Gulati said.

Parnell and other Republicans running for House seats across the nation also benefited from the high turnout across the board and the commitment by Republicans to follow through with straight-party voting up and down the ballot.

“There were a lot of straight party votes being cast,” said G. Terry Madonna, political scientist and director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. “Look at the edge that Trump has in Beaver County; it’s substantial. So it looks like Lamb has been caught up in straight-party voting for Trump that has made this difficulty for him.”

Lamb is not the only Democratic candidate to do worse than expected based on early results: “If you look at the national trend, the Democrats did very poorly in the House races; they’re going to lose about 10 seats, and all but one is coming from districts that they won in 2018,” Gulati said.

With turnouts among Democrats also hitting record highs, observers attribute Parnell’s success to a combination of hard work by Republicans to get voters to register and turn out and failures among Democrats struggling to campaign during a pandemic.

“A lot of Democratic candidates, they outspent the incumbent Republican and it wasn’t enough,” Gulati said. “The party ID is just so strong, and there’s not not that many people on the fence these days, and that’s where money tends to matter the most — winning those undecided — but also getting out the vote.”

Parnell’s campaign out-raised Lamb’s by $270,00 in the second quarter, with more than 8,000 individual donors. Third-quarter campaign finance reports filed Oct. 15 show that Parnell again out-raised the incumbent, raking in $1.6 million in donations to Lamb’s $1.2 million. Lamb’s campaign coffer reported $1.4 million in cash to Parnell’s $955,000. Each spent about $2.5 million, each with more than $1.2 million in donations from out of state, campaign finance records show.

Parnell’s contributors outside of the district included donors in Houston and Dallas, Texas, West Palm Beach, Fla. and Paradise Valley, Ariz.. Lamb’s out-of-state donors included those in New York, Washington and Los Angeles.

Lamb pulled into an early lead based on Allegheny County’s early votes counted Tuesday night, while Parnell held onto the majority of votes cast in Beaver and Butler counties. Those trends held while the margins narrowed Wednesday.

Once all mail-in ballots counted, Lamb predicts that #Biden will take #PA:

“I believe @JoeBiden will win #Pennsylvania.

“I don’t know when it’ll be official or when the counting will be complete, but based on what we’re seeing with the mail-in vote, it looks like he will win.” pic.twitter.com/7O81506TUi

— Natasha Lindstrom (@NewsNatasha) November 5, 2020