U.S. Rep. Keith Rothfus is now facing a battle unlike any he’s faced in recent memory. Rothfus has been a “shoe-in” candidate in his past two Congressional elections, winning both by a combined and impressive 120,000 votes. However, Pennsylvania redistricting has imposed a new potential obstacle on a road that’s always been smooth driving for Rothfus and his campaign team that is seasoned fundraisers.

The obstacle, of course, is a young and vibrant Congressman Conor Lamb and a new district that should include more liberal density.

Lamb’s special election win over Rick Saccone, which was the subject of national media attention, “celebritized” the Democrat to some degree. Lamb’s hobbled win over an embattled Republican candidate (less than 1,000 votes separated the two candidates) infused Liberals with hope but was more a reflection of a struggling to recover from allegations that he fleeced taxpayers for per diem expenditures.

Lamb holding an AR-15 rifle in a campaign ad following Florida’s school shooting hysteria painted a picture of a Democrat taking a less reactive and more rational stance on guns.

Add all of this into redistricting, or, Democrats changing the rules as a way to compensate for a severely decimated party’s message, and you get what could be a hard-fought battle in Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the district mapping was “illegal gerrymandering” on the part of Republicans last January. Now, the 17th is to include portions of the 3rd, 12th, 14th, and 18th Districts.

Now, The “Blue Wave Is Coming” And Rothfus Is Doomed – Only Thing Is, I Don’t Buy It

If you listen to the media or any liberal in Pittsburgh, you’d think incumbent Keith Rothfus is a dead duck vs. incumbent Conor Lamb.

But there is more to the story (there always is).

Local Pittsburgh media, smelling blood in the water, has already pronounced Rothfus as nearly dead.

Last week, Pittsburgh’s second largest print media, Trib Live, claimed a new Monmouth University poll had Rothfus down by a double-digit deficit to Lamb.

You’d think by now that the media would cease propping up unreliable/misrepresented polls to the public as a way to shuttle in candidates they support. The poll’s demographics are questionable, at best, having seemingly left our “Libertarian” voters who aren’t likely to take chances with a Democrat. Additionally, a severely lower density of Republicans were polled in a R+3 district.

DEMOGRAPHICS (weighted) Party Registration 38% Republican 50% Democrat 12% Neither Self-Reported Party ID 34% Republican 28% Independent 38% Democrat.

But like failing identity politics, lunacy polls that aim to diminish conservative voter turnout are a mainstay tool in the Democrat’s workshed.

If we learned anything from President Trump’s road to the White House, its that election polling is more chum for the media than they are insightful. You can skew the demographics polled and beyond that, many conservatives, due to threats of job loss and other ramifications, are less likely to tell anyone their voting lean.

In other words, polls are junk. And typically, the media uses them to create an atmosphere that shocks fringe voters into staying home on election days.

But polls are junk, voters are learning this, and the effect is becoming less and less. Trump’s voter turnout was high even in the face of constant “double-digit polling deficits” that plagued his campaign.

Trump, of course, relentlessly campaigned. Rothfus, on the other hand, is more of a low-key candidate that’s allowed his record for voting down funding for Planned Parenthood, the Affordable Care Act, and even a Hurricane Sandy Relief fund that he felt “raised an insolvent program’s [National Flood Insurance Program] debt ceiling.”

Lamb’s “anti-Pelosi, gun freedom, patriotism” campaign certainly makes sense strategically, but it also highlights yet more liberal hypocrisy from a party that’s more confused with its internals each and every passing day.

Democrats celebrated Lamb’s slight victory over Saccone. However, since his big special election win, we’ve seen no protests against Lamb regarding his pro-gun stance.

Where did liberals go?

Liberals are more desperate to be right in their party of Trump hate mentality than they are to “make the world a safer place.”

And Lamb’s exposing that truth in spades.

By running a campaign that wouldn’t even concede for bans on high-capacity magazines, Lamb’s political philosophy is almost derived straight from an NRA playbook.

That’s great, until it isn’t (of course). 

Lamb’s strategy is smart in the way that it realizes liberals will vote via labels and identities over issues. Liberals do not understand the gun issue, because if they did, they’d realize that high gun control urban areas have worse crime rates when compared with those that don’t have strict gun control (think strict gun control warzones like Chicago where people are now afraid to walk the streets).

This allows Lamb to seep into extracting independent/libertarian voters. (remember, Libertarians were conveniently missing from the Monmouth University poll).

Lamb now has the luxury of crap University polls on his side to hopefully subvert conservative voter enthusiasm in November.

The problem is, Lamb’s still a Democrat even if he pronounces himself diametrically opposed to Pelosi. He’s utilizing a Democratic PAC for funding (J Street).

By Lorie Shaull from Washington, United States – Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Supreme Court news conference to call for the reversal of President Trump’s travel ban on refugees and immigrants from several Middle East countries, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

If he were truly opposed to liberal lunacy, he’d run as an independent. But that’s not the case.

The media touting “double-digit polls” also leaves out the fact that President Trump is likely to publically support Rothfus in his campaign against Lamb. Pence already lent Rothfus support last June.

It isn’t difficult to surmise that President Trump would also make a Rothfus push in a state he turned Red in 2016.

Lamb is a risky vote for libertarians (again, not sampled on the Monmouth University poll) and independents. The time for rogue, anti-establishment Democratic candidates will arrive some day, make no mistake about it, but that day isn’t here yet.

Any candidate signing on as a Democrat will indeed be a slave to the system of self-described socialist values; including heavy taxation, gun control/bans, and free speech desecration.

The Democratic party is in shambles, but internally, it is compromised by power struggles that look to shut down any outliers who speak against its crown. If Lamb wanted to move beyond a Congressional seat, he’d have to remold his views to be more inline with unsavory, confusing, hypocritical nonsense.

And he would.

Trust For Democrats Is Dead

My point is, no one with common sense trusts the Democratic party.

With a roaring economy, a new infusion of jobs, and a healthier coal industry, I don’t believe that voter turnout will be lower for conservatives. Polls didn’t have that effect in Pennsylvania’s general election, they won’t serve to sabatoge midterms for the 17th, either.

Rothfus has been a reliable candidate over the years. He’ll have President Trump’s support, which has shown to be a powerful influence in recent Republican primaries where the President’s support yielded 4 of 5 wins (The 5th is Kansas’s Kris Kobach, where the thing margin has prompted a recount). Rothfus will also have the luxury of libertarians and independents complete discomfort with the Democratic party, no matter what Lamb’s Television spots do to contest those ludicrous values.

Lamb will do his best to extract outlier or fringe voters to move his way. But voter turnout will be the absolute decider. No conservatives will fall for unreliable polls.

I would predict Rothfus to win for a third time even in the face of new challenges.

photo credit: By US House Office of Photography – https://rothfus.house.gov/meet-keith/official-portrait, Public Domain, Link

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