[ad_1]
Pennsylvania is key to the Democrats’ Senate hopes in next year’s midterms. They are defending four vulnerable incumbents, all in states President Joe Biden has worn, and are in violation in two Republican-held seats Biden won: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. GOP Senator Pat Toomey is retiring and Republicans have a competitive primary to replace him.
Lamb is hosting a union hall event in Pittsburgh on Friday to officially announce his candidacy. In a video previewing his campaign launch, Lamb says that “the other side denies reality and worships Trump.” He said Democrats should “rely on our majority” and called Pennsylvania “the most important Senate seat in the country.”
He joins a main field crowded with formidable contenders for the nomination. Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh and State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta are in the running, and State Senator Sharif Street has launched an exploratory committee.
Fetterman has built a substantial lead in fundraising, but Lamb will join the race with the second-most cash in hand from the primary field. Fetterman had $ 3 million in the bank as of June 30, while Lamb had nearly $ 1.8 million, Arkoosh had $ 632,000 and Kenyatta $ 282,000, according to the latest reports from the Federal Election Commission.
Lamb, a centrist House member who represents a Pittsburgh-area district that Biden narrowly carried, has been critical of the more liberal wing of the party in the past, particularly on issues such as funding for the police, which he said was straining members of the battlefield districts. . His candidacy offers a contrast to the current ground, with Fetterman and Kenyatta in particular on more progressive campaign messages.
Lamb said there were issues such as law enforcement where he is more moderate, but also touted his record of supporting campaign finance reform and supporting union rights as “economically progressive positions.” . Lamb said this spring that the Senate should drop filibuster after Republicans blocked a bill to establish an independent commission to investigate the Jan.6 riots on Capitol Hill.
In the interview, he called the party’s Covid relief legislation “the most progressive law we have ever passed in a generation” and said its track record “puts me somewhere in the middle of where we are as a party” in the state.
“The way we did it was to pick Joe Biden as a candidate and then elect him and then send people like me back to the House so that we are the majority,” Lamb said. “We can get very, very gradual results if we’re open-minded about who we want to elect and if we have a team spirit.”
The Republicans also have a competitive primary for their nomination to replace Toomey. Businessman Jeff Bartos, veteran Sean Parnell – who lost to Lamb in a House race last year – former Ambassador Carla Sands, lawyer Sean Gale and former Congress candidate Kathy Barnette are all up for grabs, as are a handful of other candidates.
[ad_2]
Source link