‘What happened?’ Fox & Friends says Democrats are in trouble because Connor Lamb win wasn’t a ‘blowout’
Democrat Conor Lamb has apparently won an upset victory over Republican Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District -- and the "Fox & Friends" hosts tried to rationalize the results.
President Donald Trump stumped for Saccone, a Christian nationalist state representative, in a district he won by 20 points -- but Lamb still won a narrow victory in the heavily conservative western Pennsylvania district.
"This looked like a blowout for a while," said co-host Brian Kilmeade. "Conor Lamb was in the driver's seat, just a matter of blowing up the balloons -- and then what happened?"
After trying to deny the apparent win, Kilmeade then tried to reason away the Democratic gain.
"Is it true that the Democrats have momentum? Yes," Kilmeade said. "Is it true that all these special elections, even the ones they lost, is their turnout up? Yes. Is it also true in the past when the minority party comes up after losing the presidency and the House and the Senate? That is tradition."
Kilmeade said that Saccone did not show sufficient support for Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs -- although both candidates said they backed the measures.
"Saccone is -- he is not pro-union, so right there we have a virtual dead heat," Kilmeade reasoned. "Also, a 33-year-old prosecutor who's a Marine, as opposed to somebody who is not really known statewide, certainly is better."
But he cautioned Democrats not to be too excited about flipping a House seat in a heavily conservative district after flipping a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama.
"The Democrats have reason to be happy? Yeah," Kilmeade admitted. "But I’m very curious to see how many pro-life, pro-tax cut, pro-gun, anti-Nancy Pelosi candidates will be nominated for November, because Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have a different image where the party is going and they’re looked at as leaders. If they are saying, 'Wow, we are on a roll, yeah.' Name another candidate like Conor Lamb."
Lamb, in fact, opposed the GOP tax cuts, which he called a "giveaway" to the wealthy, and co-host Steve Doocy suggested the Democrat tricked GOP voters into backing him.
"What’s interesting about this particular thing that is too close to call is they both ran as Republicans," Doocy said.
Co-host Ainsley Earhardt, for her part, cited political observations made on Tuesday's program by the president's son.
"If he does win and does make it to Washington, of course, he is going to vote with the Democrats just like Joe Manchin did," she said. "We had Donald Trump Jr. on yesterday, he was saying no Democrat is ever going to go against the party. They are not going to go against Nancy Pelosi, they are not going to go against Chuck Schumer. Those are the two most liberal of all those serving in Washington of the Democratic Party."