Who wins a Senate race between Fetterman and Reschenthaler?

[YE]

Outside of the 20 HRC states and perhaps Georgia, any statewide election is likely be won by Republicans going forward until a Republican is back in the oval office. Fetterman is probably not an exception here though I expect such race will be competitive.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

These hypotheticals are Rs attempts to think that Rs have a natural advantage in midterm. When will the Rs learn that even in a Biden midterm, WI and PA may go the way of Gov Elections, Gov Evers is favored and Fetterman is gonna run for Gov than Senator

The trend has been to favor the out party during the midterm, going back to 2006. Doesn't mean it'll continue in 2022, but that might as well be our starting assumption, until we can get some actual information.

For your info a Prez approval rating in 1962/1998/2002, I have stated over and over again, is 51 percent, then Inparty gain seats Bush W, and Trump had 44 percent approvals due to impeachment and Obama have 11% unemployment, the unemployment is 6.6% and lowering and Biden isn't gonna have substained approvals at 44% plus all the seats are around the 291 the Rs haven't cracked the blue wall since HRC.

That's why Ds will win,😃😃😃

Don't forget 2005 tsunami Katrina affected Bush W approvals as well, where in 2002, he gained seats due to 911 backdrop

[coloradocowboi]

First of all, both the 2010 and 2014 waves were relatively muted in PA. The GOP only won the House races by about 4 points in 2010. In 2014, they won by 10 points, albeit with much lower turnout. Obviously, Corbett's loss in 2014 was due to extenuating circumstances, but a Democrat still won in a wave election nonetheless.

Second, in 2010 Sestak lost by only 2 percentage points to Toomey. Toomey's entire margin was made up in his native Lehigh Valley and performing well in the burbs. That is hardly guaranteed, especially for a less talented politician.

Third, the highest propensity voters-college educated whites-have significantly shifted toward the Dems since 2014.

At best for the GOP, this match-up would be a tossup, but honestly if they nominate a rural right-winger like Reschenthaler I think it's already lost. Could Costello or Fitz or Dent beat Fetterman? Yeah I think so. But I'm skeptical that just because it's a Biden midterm any GOP candidate will automatically beat him.

[KaiserDave]

Pennsylvania has been largely immune to R waves (see 2010, 2014, 1994 House)

So this is a tossup. Prematurely declaring the race over because "Biden midterm" is foolish

It's a marquee Senate race and a legitimate tossup. I want Josh Shapiro here, Fetterman can go for Governor. Lamb I would say should run to be Attorney General in 2024.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Tilt/Lean R with Fetterman, Tilt D with Lamb

Lamb and Biden both won PA17 by about 2%. That's actually a semi-decent showing considering the nationwide House Democratic underperformance, but it doesn't suggest to me that he's an especially strong statewide candidate. Do you think Fetterman is particularly weak?

I think it depends on Fetterman's messaging tbh.  From what I've read, I worry about him rubbing suburbanites the wrong way and while it's not like he wouldn't still get strong margins in the Philly burbs, I'm not sure if he'd run up the score the way a Democrat needs to in order to win statewide in PA (hopefully folks have learned after 2020 that you can't take suburbanites for granted, especially down ballot; it's not a "vote blue no matter who" situation).  

I'm not saying that'd definitely happen and he could definitely win (and I'll change this rating if he announces and seems to have the right type of messaging), but I do worry.  Plus, Fetterman is pretty untested and has only won one competitive election (the LG primary) and even then, it's pretty clear that he only won b/c there were like 4 serious Philly/Philly burbs candidates and no one serious from the rest of the state (plus the incumbent was a scandal-ridden dumpster fire who'd been cut loose by his allies and had a terrible relationship with Tom Wolf from day one).  

Honestly, if it were just Fetterman vs. a single Philly/Philly burbs candidate, he'd have been taken to the woodshed through no fault of his own.  I just don't see much evidence to back up all the hype surrounding Fetterman.  I also haven't seen much evidence that PA is a Berniecrat-friendly state in general although obviously that's something a strong candidate can probably overcome.    

Conor Lamb has a strong track record of over-performing in competitive races in tough districts (his special election and 2020 were really close, and he decisively beat a fairly inoffensive Generic R opponent in 2018).  Say what you will about him, but it's pretty clear that Lamb wouldn't have won any of his House races without at least some statistically significant amount of crossover support.  Lamb has actually proven he knows how to win competitive races and that he's already built a strong personal brand in a part of the state where we're desperately struggling just to stop the bleeding.  

TL;DR: The way I see it, OTOH we have a consistent over-performer who fits his state well and has a proven track record of beating hostile trends, as well as getting crossover votes in an era of extreme polarization...but he's a bit more moderate than some (myself included) would like.  OTOH, we have a largely untested progressive who hasn't proven he can actually win statewide in his own right and has never won (or even been the nominee in) a competitive GE for anything above Mayor of a town of about ~2,100 people (LG doesn't really count since that's not an independently elected office in PA).  I'd argue that if your primary goal is to flip the Senate seat then it's kind of a no brainer.  That said, I'm sure Fetterman's time will come sooner rather than later if he's smart enough to wait for it.

No, Lamb doesn't have a lot of crossover appeal, he is simply lucky to be in a seat which is trending left (contrary to SW PA as whole), actually he lost Beaver by 16 and it's the college educated left trending burbs that saved him, besides his performance this month was not impressive by any standard as he did barely the same than Biden.

- He was first elected in a hyper-Republican district where Democrats had only come within 20% once since the 2002 redistricting (they lost by 18% in 2006).  The best any pre-Lamb Democratic nominee did in the district's 2010s iteration was losing by 28% (64% to 36%).

That was certainly impressive but also a result of special election turnout weirdness and him capturing a political zeitgeist he failed to retain as an incumbent. The turnout was much lower on both Democratic and Republican sides than in the 2018 midterm (229k vs 322k - changes in the district population mean percentages aren't exact).

- The point is that Lamb kept the margin in Beaver County down enough that he could still hang on, otherwise the Pittsburgh suburbs wouldn't have mattered

Agreed, but we've seen this happen in a few House special elections. Nate McMurray significantly improved on Clinton's showing in NY27's special election, especially in the rural areas, but Chris Jacobs has had a double-digit swing in his favour in the regular election.

- The fact that Lamb didn't underperform Biden at all is part of what's impressive.  It's clear that a big part of why Democrats underperformed down ballot was that a not insignificant number of suburbanites simply voted for Biden and then GOP down the ballot (i.e. they essentially voted like #NeverTrump Republicans this cycle whether they identified as such or not).  Unlike many competitive districts, here, those folks still voted for Lamb.

Just look at the New Hampshire legislature, the suburban Texas House seats, or Orange County, CA if you think Biden voters were titanium D voters and that there was nothing impressive about matching Biden's performance in a competitive district this cycle.

Lamb only got an 'overperformance margin' ~2% better than the average House Democrat's. Even adjusting PA by 2% from where I'd expect it to be in 2022 with generic candidates, I wouldn't call the race tilt D this far out or move it from tilt R to tilt D unless I was assuming Fetterman would underperform a generic Dem (which I'm not).

I also disagree with him being the most electable candidate - it's certainly not a 'no-brainer'. Although I don't think he'd be a bad candidate, I have doubts about him holding up to Fetterman and especially Shapiro. District overperformances are often localised phenomena that don't translate statewide and usually don't match the advantages of having a preexisting profile statewide if that profile is a popular one. This makes it harder for political opponent's to "define" a candidacy. Shapiro benefited from being in a non-federal race but achieved a bigger overperformance than Lamb and did it statewide.

Lamb didn't even manage the best House overperformance in PA. Among Democrats, that award goes to Matt Cartwright, who got a margin 8% better than Biden's in his district (receiving an 'outperformance margin' 10% better than the average House Dem.'s and 8% better than Conor Lamb's). AOC's style probably doesn't play well in PA but Cartwright is much more progressive than Lamb and yet did better despite being less economically moderate. His appeal (like Lamb's) could be localised but it suggests Fetterman isn't doomed to be a weaker candidate than a generic Dem.

Tl;dr I think Lamb is overhyped because he is a relatively fresh-faced veteran (despite veteran candidates not having an especially good track record) and a moderate hero (despite the presence of more popular moderates and the lack of a strong correlation between economic centrism and electability).

[It’s so Joever]

Tossup.

[Gracile]

Lean R, as with pretty much any Democrat here in a Biden midterm (let's not kid ourselves here).