About PA-15...

I was sitting in Coca-Cola Park, having a beer and watching the IronPigs playoff game when I saw the first rumblings of Charlie Dent's retirement from Congress. Within an hour, I spoke to at least four or five interested candidates- i'm not kidding. While i'm not going to say who on a blog, I guess the point is still made- this seat is going to draw a lot of interested candidates, some very good on paper, some not. If we're going to really look at this seat though, it's worth us really getting to understand the seat.

The district is more Republican than it used to be. It's changed a lot since the "competitive" days of 2002, 2006, or even 2010. The Berks and Lebanon County portions of the seat are considerably more Republican than the Easton area that the district lost. Dauphin County has become blue in Presidential races, but the portion of it in the 15th Congressional District is not Harrisburg- it's more Republican. The district is still all of Lehigh County, and the Bethlehem area of Northampton County, which is basically where the Democratic votes are, but let's not confuse those counties with Philadelphia. The bottom line is that Trump won PA-15 by 8%.

Then there's the candidate pool- and it's not very deep. The Democratic bench in this district's Dauphin, Lebanon, and Berks areas is very limited, and doesn't include many people who have won a county or state level race. Add in the scandal in Allentown, and a significant portion of Lehigh is out of play for candidates too. There are four Democratic State Representatives, several Northampton County level officials, and a current and former Mayor in Bethlehem- but no slam dunks to start out with. There is a considerably larger bench of potential Republican elected officials in the district to begin with, and they already have a State Representative (Simmons) running.

Finally, there's the reality of districts like this- Democrats haven't won in places like this very often lately, because they have no idea how to run in districts like this. Network television isn't the way to run this race, and yet it's the biggest piece of most DCCC budgets. There are a few walkable areas to run a ground game, particularly in Allentown and Bethlehem, but it's not an easy district to walk on the whole. Finally, there's the fact that the national party organization loves to pick the candidate who has the best record on fundraising, and the reality is that the candidate who can attract the most Philadelphia area donors is probably the candidate least equipped to connect to voters in this seat. I can see us messing this up as a party, in fact one might call it likely.

With all of that said, the door is open. The opportunity is there. Democrats could absolutely win this seat, with the right candidate. This is probably the best chance we will get to win this seat for a generation, and losing it to someone like Rep. Simmons should be absolutely horrifying for all Democrats. This race will be hard, and I'd give Democrats no better than a 40% chance of victory, but we better convert on this 40%.