SUNDAY, MAY 15 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
BY COLBY ITKOWITZpittsburgh — Conor Lamb
stood with Joe Biden at a cam-
paign rally here days before a
special election in 2018. Voters
were about to issue a resounding
repudiation of then-President
Donald Trump and catapult Lamb
to Democratic stardom.
Lamb, a young, centrist, clean-
cut Marine Corps veteran and for-
mer prosecutor, was about to flip a
red U.S. House district in western
Pennsylvania — an early harbin-
ger of the Democratic takeover of
the House later that year. Biden,
then a former vice president eager
to help, stood before a roaring
crowd and gave the young candi-
date “the highest compliment,”
comparing Lamb to his late son,
Beau. Lamb said he “couldn’t be
happier to be onstage today with a
leader that everybody likes.”
The political dynamics for both
men couldn’t be more different
four years later, with Lamb strug-
gling badly in the Democratic pri-
mary for Pennsylvania’s open U.S.
Senate seat. Days before voters go
to the polls, no national headlin-
ers are coming to campaign for
the congressman. Those missing
include Biden, now an unpopular
president who is neutral in the
intraparty contest.
Lamb is trailing John Fetter-
man by as many as 39 points in
some public opinion polls. Fetter-
man is a tattooed, 6-foot-9 liberal
with a shaved head who has
emerged as a folk hero for many
Pennsylvania Democrats. Lamb
was the model Democrat in 2018,
a congenial, manicured candidate
straight from Hollywood central
casting who could appeal to vot-
ers turned off by Trump while still
wary of the party that opposed the
45th president.
But these days, Democrats here
say they want more than some-
thing to vote against; they want
something to vote for. And many
say they have found that in Fetter-
man.
“Conor Lamb is a good guy, but
we’ve got enough lambs on our
side, we need a lion,” said Jeffrey
Phillips, 66, a retired electrician
attending a recent Fetterman
event. “We get in trouble because
we are always picking guys we
think can win.”
The race in Pennsylvania is ex-
pected to factor heavily into the
battle for control of the Senate
this November. Democrats are de-
fending the narrowest of majori-
ties, and Pennsylvania offers them
a chance to flip a seat now under
Republican control in a purple
state.
Biden’s lingering unpopularity
looms over his party in Pennsylva-
nia, where he won in 2020 after
Trump’s surprising victory in the
state in 2016. But a competitive
and costly Republican primary in
which a lesser-known far-right
candidate has recently been surg-
ing in some polls has boosted
Democratic hopes of winning
here in the fall.
Fetterman is something of an
anomaly in today’s politics. After
Democratic voters rejected left-
leaning candidates in other high-
profile intraparty contests during
the Biden presidency, Fetterman,
who endorsed Sen. Bernie Sand-
ers (I-Vt.) for president in 2016,
has seized the inside track in a
crowded field featuring more
mainstream competition.
On a recent warm evening,
Fetterman wore an oversize bur-
gundy Carhartt hoodie, baggy
gym shorts and black Sketchers as
he wove his way through a crowd
gathered on a restaurant patio in
Westmoreland County, an area
south of Pittsburgh that went for
Trump over Biden by more than
30 percentage points.
Phillip Schuller, 68, sat at a
table with five people he’d just
met, each sampling a small glass
of raspberry jalapeño beer on tap.
Schuller said he enthusiastically
campaigned for Lamb in 2018 but
in this race is wholeheartedly be-
hind Fetterman.
“I highly admired him, he’s a
good man,” Schuller said of Lamb.
“If he wins he’ll be fine, but Fetter-
man is better.”
“It’s nothing against Conor
Lamb,” Schuller’s table mate,
Mary Ritter, 60, said. But Fetter-
man, she said, “has the ‘it factor’. I
find him lovable.”
Lamb’s pitch to voters is about
electability, pointing to his three
consecutive wins in red districts
where Republicans spent millions
of dollars trying to defeat him.
That message earned him the en-
dorsement of the Philadelphia
Democratic Party, dozens of local
unions and the National Organi-
zation for Women.
Last week, the editorial boardof the Philadelphia Inquirer, the
state’s largest newspaper, en-
dorsed Lamb, writing that he was
the Democrats’ best chance at flip-
ping the Senate seat being left
open by retiring Republican Sen.
Patrick J. Toomey.
Larry Ceisler, a public affairs
strategist and a veteran of Penn-
sylvania politics, supports Lamb
but acknowledges that voters ap-
pear to be looking for someone
nontraditional this year.
“Conor is just a wonderful per-
son, nose to the grindstone, work
it out, get things done. He’s aworkhorse, not a show horse, and
unfortunately, the electorate is go-
ing for the show horses,” Ceisler
said. “When he won that special
election, he created excitement,
and I would argue that whatever
excitement Fetterman has created
in this election, Conor did 10
times that in the special because
the consequences were so great.”
But Ceisler said that Lamb’s
past success has been as a general-
election candidate and that he has
never been tested in a competitive
primary with Democratic voters.
Lamb got a late start, joining
the race six months after Fetter-man, who amassed a nearly $
million war chest in the first quar-
ter of 2021. As of the end of April,
Lamb had raised a little more than
$6 million, most of which came
from large donations. Fetterman
raised nearly $16 million, more
than half of which came from
small-dollar donations.
The Lamb campaign did not
make him available for an inter-
view for this story. His campaign
was initially unresponsive to a
request to see Lamb on the cam-
paign trail and later said he has
not had many public events andhas “mostly been door knocking.”
Fetterman also has benefited
from higher name recognition —
he ran for the same Senate seat in
2016, won statewide in a race for
lieutenant governor and appears
regularly on MSNBC. And he is
accessible on social media; just
this week, a recently engaged
woman with 129 Twitter followers
tweeted that she wanted Fetter-
man to officiate her Nov. 23 wed-
ding. He responded, “I’d be hon-
ored.”
On a Wednesday night in the
backroom of the small Beaver
County Democrats headquarters,about a dozen people gathered for
a “text bank,” the work of grass-
roots volunteers texting would-be
voters. On this night, Lamb’s cam-
paign was providing a Zoom tuto-
rial on sending and responding to
texts.
If a voter was undecided, cam-
paign workers sent back a pre-
written message about Lamb’s
priorities, including raising the
federal minimum raise to $15 an
hour and cutting prescription
drug prices. “I truly believe that
Conor gives us the best chance to
win this November and he has the
record to prove it,” the automated
text said.
Beaver County, which is in
Lamb’s congressional district, is a
predominantly White, working-
class area north of Pittsburgh that
used to be a Democratic strong-
hold but has voted Republican in
the past four presidential elec-
tions. In the Democratic office, on
the first floor of a multiuse build-
ing, the walls are decorated with
framed portraits of Barack
Obama, John F. Kennedy and
Franklin D. Roosevelt. In a corner
stands life-size cutouts of Biden
and Vice President Harris.
All but a few of the volunteers
were Lamb supporters, including
Erin Gabriel, 43, a mother of girls
with developmental disabilities.
Gabriel said she is backing Lamb
because he provides substantial
answers on policy questions, es-
pecially about issues of disability
rights. She said Lamb’s joining
Democratic Sen. Robert P. Casey
Jr. in the U.S. Senate “would be a
dream scenario for kids like
mine.”
“I want someone who can actu-
ally do the job,” Gabriel said. “He
listens really, really well, learns
the issues and campaigns on the
causes. He’s focused on service.”
Alicia Zimmerman, 52, said
that she was originally going to
vote for Fetterman but that when
she heard him at a candidate fo-
rum, she felt Lamb offered more
substance. She’s now undecided
about whom she ultimately will
support.
“Lamb seems like he will hit the
ground running; he knows the
bills, the policies,” she said.
“They’re both good candidates;
my heart loves them both.”
Carolyn Yager, 63, felt similarly
conflicted. She began supporting
Fetterman before Lamb enteredthe race. Now, she’s sticking with
Fetterman, saying she may have
been for Lamb had he gotten in
earlier.
Yager added that she “liked the
idea of” Fetterman’s “walking into
the Senate” and shaking up the
status quo.
While Lamb has won over
many local Democratic officials,
Fetterman has been able to peel
off some influential Democrats
who normally align themselves
with the more-moderate wing of
the party, reflecting the far reach
of his influence in state circles.
T.J. Rooney, a former chairman
of the state Democratic Party,
threw his support behind Fetter-
man six weeks ago. Rooney said
he went for the candidate with the
most momentum to carry the
state in November.
“If you’re going to win, you’re
going to have to be able to adjust.
If we don’t adjust at this moment
in time, we’re going to lose. I don’t
make bones about the fact that I
epitomize the establishment
Democratic Party. Nine times out
of 10 I would have supported
Conor Lamb, but you can’t use the
usual playbook; it ends up being
an unmitigated disaster,” Rooney
said.
Around 125 people, including
Phillips, crowded into a small air-
port hangar in Fayette County in a
deep-red part of the state to hear
Fetterman exactly a week before
the primary. He worked the room,
posing for photos with a wide,
open-mouthed grin.
A grown man asked for a “fan-
boy selfie.” A woman told Fetter-
man she’d been registered as a
Republican but switched parties
this year to vote for him. “Can I
give you a hug for that?” Fetter-
man asked. Another woman,
who’d rushed home to change
after cleaning houses, started cry-
ing when she met him, thanking
him for not turning his back on
the conservative parts of the state
such as Fayette County.
In an indicator of how mini-
mally competitive the Democratic
race has become, Fetterman did
not even mention Lamb in his
brief remarks, saying he had no
interest in attacking a fellow
Democrat. Instead, he trained his
attention on Mehmet Oz, a possi-
ble GOP opponent in the general
election, calling him a “weirdo
celebrity doctor.”Once shining Democratic star Conor Lamb now dimmed
MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) is trailing Senate primary opponent
John Fetterman by as many as 39 points in some opinion polls.As he was on his way to f lipping a red U.S. Houseseat in Pennsylvania in 2018, Democratic starsrallied to him. Today, he is a lonely campaigner.WE BRING THE
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