The Note: A clarifying moment for Trump in Pennsylvania
Welcome back to the political season.
The TAKE with Rick Klein
Welcome back to the political season. If it seemed like it never left us – well, that’s because it didn’t.
President Donald Trump is thrusting himself back into the campaign narrative, with a 2020 slogan – “Keep America Great, exclamation point” – and with his midterm involvement marked by the kind of nicknames, insults and partial truths we’ve almost come to expect.
Tomorrow’s special election in a deep-red Pennsylvania House will mark a clarifying moment in the midst of considerable White House chaos. As Trump’s presidency teeters between breakdowns and breakthroughs, a slice of Trump country gets its say in a race Trump knows will be a statement on his presidency.
“This guy should win easily,” Trump said Saturday of Rick Saccone, the GOP candidate in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District.
He isn’t wrong about that. While national Republicans have been talking up their own candidate’s flaws, bracing for an embarrassing defeat, Trump publicly declared himself a Saccone fan: “I think he is handsome.”
The problem for Trump won’t be how Saccone looks – but how Saccone’s race makes Trump look.
The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks
Over the weekend, the DNC moved forward in the process of reforming the party. While one of the catchiest changes on the table deals with cutting the number and power of super delegates, other parts of the plan could have even bigger ramifications for the party's primaries.
Two recommended reforms working their way through the party's committees are controversial but have the potential to drastically increase voter participation in the process of selecting Democratic candidates. First, the document dealing with new best practices says the party will be committed to "expanding the use of primaries" and "working to achieve same-day registration and same-day party switching."
The latter especially could be key to allowing young people and independents, who are hesitant to lock in party preference, feel included and able to participate. Some Democrats worry about the precedent of giving folks a say who have not joined the ranks officially, but others look at data like in Pennsylvania' 18th and know the only chance the Democrat has to win is if he successfully expands and grows the Democratic base. And one of the ways to do that may be to let people who are not party faithful show up just on game days.
The TIP with Adam Kelsey
Less than an hour after President Trump wrapped up his 75-minute-long, free-wheeling campaign event Saturday night — one complete with his usual attacks on all who oppose his agenda and, of course, the media — an unlikely figure joined in criticizing some of the president's favorite punching bags.
Democratic 18th Congressional District candidate Conor Lamb, Rick Saccone's opponent, took to Twitter to share his dismay with the attention cable networks gave the event, ostensibly organized to support the Republican.
Announcing a get-out-the-vote rally with union members in rural Greene County Saturday, Lamb quipped: "Assume it will air live on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc."
Lamb is far from the first Democrat to lament what's viewed as a media fixation with Trump, but the candidate's complaint is notable given his efforts to fly under the national radar and focus on a local campaign in the run-up to Tuesday's vote.
Most notably, in early February, Lamb was joined by Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., for an event with local supporters at a campaign office, just days after Kennedy delivered the Democratic response to the State of the Union. Not only was the event not announced to the media, but one day prior, a Lamb campaign official told ABC News there was nothing on the schedule for the day Kennedy swung through.
The 33-year-old former assistant U.S. attorney isn't your typical Democrat. His digital eye-roll toward the cable networks comes as he's supported Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, balked on calling for stricter gun control measures and discussed his personal pro-life stance on abortion.
Those right-leaning views are part of the reason Lamb has been able to tighten the 18th District race after it voted for Trump by a nearly 20-point margin in 2016. Even the president, who watched his Saturday crowd chant "CNN sucks" and openly debated which network he disliked most, acknowledged the candidate's strengths at the rally.
"I might like him," he said, before acknowledging why he was there. "And then [Saccone] is going to be very angry at me."
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Not that I'm aware of.” — Deputy press secretary Raj Shah when asked on “This Week” whether President Trump approved the payment his personal lawyer made to Stormy Daniels.
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The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.