So what is the most Democratic part of this district so I can know when to throw in the towel or celebrate ?
I just started looking through some of the precinct data for the district, but I would imagine Lamb will have to perform extremely well in Allegheny County to offset Republican votes in heavily Republican parts of the district.
My ballpark math is that Allegheny County areas within CD-18 might have accounted for 35% of the district vote in 2016 and went 46-49 Trump.
The only really solidly Dem stronghold within the Allegheny portion of the district is Mount Lebanon Township (13% of the CD-18 vote within Allegheny) which went (61-34) HRC in 2016.
Scott Township (5% of Allegheny CD-18 vote 2016) is a Lean Dem place that went (52-44 HRC) in 2016...
Really the battles for a large win the Allegheny County portion of the district for Lamb will involve a double digit win in
marginal Trump parts of Allegheny (Bethel Park, Moon, South Fayette, Upton St Clair, Whitehall, etc).
If Lamb is really polling within +/- a few points from the 'Pub he will also need to keep 'Pub margins down to 10-15% in Washington County, and although I haven't crunched the precinct numbers for the CD-18 portion of the County, overall the County was 35-60 Trump in '16, but 42-56 Romney in '12, and 47-52 Obama in '08....
Greene County will be interesting to see if a large number of Obama '08 voters come home to Lamb in '18.... County was virtually tied in '08, swung hard Romney in '12 (40-58 R), and in 2016
(28-68 R) R.
Personally, I think Greene County will stick with any 'Pub (Even against local relatively popular Dem candidates) so long as Trump is President....
Not so sure on Westmoreland yet, since I haven't really had a chance to look closer at the County and which parts of the County fall within which CDs, etc....
Still, I believe the election will be won or lost for the Dem candidate based upon a combination of the raw vote margins out of the Allegheny portion of the district, combined with the extent of the swings in Washington County.
One item to note regarding these special elections, is that just as we observed in AL-SEN '17 election, is that the race was won as a result of a combination of:
1.) High levels of Dem turnout in their base areas
2.) Depressed Pub turnout in their base areas
3.) Cross-Over voters in Middle and Upper Middle-Class White precincts and municipalities in close proximity to the larger Metro areas of the State, as well as older retirees along the Gulf Coast
The wildcard here is to what if any extent is this election nationalized in terms of Tribal voting patterns, and *HOW* that might play out if this is the case....
Trump's policy announcement on Steel Tariffs might well be enough to push the 'Pub over the finish line and show skeptical former Steelworkers that he isn't afraid to buck the Neo-Liberal Republican economic agenda on Trade Policy, even as elsewhere in WWC America Trump's popularity is fading fast.
It is interesting to note that the two special elections where Trump got involved includes two of the major historical Steel Production centers of the United States (Birmingham Alabama and Pittsburgh PA).... in the case of the former, Trump's vote share collapsed even among the heavily White precincts of Bessemer Alabama (Major Steel working Town 25 Miles from Birmingham).
Anyways hope to be back and post some municipal level numbers based on precinct data before Tuesday's election to see what the tea leaves might tell us based upon historical data....