In what seems to have become a tradition, national Republicans are complaining about how bad their candidate is just ahead of a competitive special election. The victim this time is Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, a seat that Trump won 58-39. With just days ahead of his race with Democrat Conor Lamb, Republicans have told Politico's Alex Isenstadt that Saccone is doing almost everything, but especially fundraising, wrong. Unnamed Republicans even say that they've seen private polls give Lamb a "narrow" lead.
This isn't the first time that they've taken issue with Saccone's campaign. All the way back in December, Republicans also told Politico that they worried he couldn't raise a serious amount of money, and a few suggested that local Republicans were already trying to recruit another nominee for the regularly scheduled election. One nameless Republican operative even declared back that there was "enough out there with Saccone to make him so wacky that Republicans—particularly moderate Republicans in the suburban areas—say this isn't my cup of tea," though we still don't know what they were talking about.
And it seems that Saccone's fundraising issues never went away. Saccone raised $703,000 during the first seven weeks of the year, which was considerably less than the $3.3 million Lamb took in during that time. National Republicans recount trying to walk the state representative through the basics of fundraising, and they say that NRCC chair Steve Stivers had to keep prodding him along. And Corry Bliss, who heads the major super PAC the Congressional Leadership Fund, even said on the record that "[c]andidate quality matters, and when one candidate outraises the other 5-to-1, that creates real challenges for outside groups trying to win a race."
Isenstadt also writes that the GOP was "horrified" with the few and underwhelming TV ads he did run, and felt his social media strategy was amateurish. Even the White House reportedly felt Saccone was lousy, and they actually considered scrapping a planned fundraiser with Trump because they felt the candidate couldn't draw enough donors (the event was canceled because of the school shooting in Florida). However, while some White House officials wondered if Trump should cancel his planned campaign visit with Saccone to avoid embarrassment if Tuesday goes badly, Trump says he'll go anyway because he'll get blamed for a defeat no matter what.
Many of the Republicans that spoke to Isenstadt are likely is trying to lower expectations ahead of Tuesday, as well as pin any loss or weak win on Saccone rather than Trump or the GOP brand. However, a few did say that it was unfair to blame Saccone entirely, acknowledging that the political climate was bad and that Lamb was a strong opponent. They also said that the outside groups that have been spending heavily to boost Saccone also have had a tough time. They argue that the GOP's earlier ads focusing on the tax bill and Nancy Pelosi "failed to move the needle," which could explain why in the final weeks of the race, the GOP has taken to attacking Lamb's career as a prosecutor.
So, does this kind of airing of grievances mean the GOP thinks they're about to lose? As we said at the top, this is actually pretty routine behavior from Team Red. Days ahead of a closely-watched 2014 special for Florida's 13th, Republicans also told Politico that their nominee was horrible. Unnamed Republicans bashed David Jolly's campaign against Democrat Alex Sink as "a Keystone Cops operation, marked by inept fundraising," and they faulted the 41-year-old recently-divorced candidate for campaigning with his girlfriend, who was 14 years younger than him. However, Jolly ended up pulling off a 2-point margin, though he and the NRCC never would have anything resembling a good relationship.
Last year alone, we saw these kinds of articles about Ron Estes in Kansas' 4th; Greg Gianforte in Montana (and this was before he assaulted a reporter); and Karen Handel in Georgia's 6th. The GOP also won all three, though they badly underperformed Trump in Kansas and Montana and only matched him in Georgia. In any case, while the GOP seems to have some real, long-term concerns about Saccone, this likely is a large amount of expectation setting. If Lamb wins what's normally a very red seat, Team Red can blame it on Saccone for all the reasons they laid out to Politico. And if Saccone wins by as much as a single vote, the GOP will again crow that Democrats just win moral victories and that everything is great heading into November.