美国国家公共电台 NPR Pennsylvania Election: Regional Race Could Offer Clues About Midterms Voter Turnout

 

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Lulu has been away this week in Pennsylvania, reporting on a special election. A House seat is open in the western part of the state after the Republican lawmaker holding that seat resigned amid scandal. It's a race that is being watched very closely by both Republicans and Democrats² because of what it could say about the 2018 midterms. And the two parties are using very different strategies to woo voters when they go to the polls later this month.

Lulu begins her report at this fundraiser at an upscale golf club where the Republican candidate is addressing his donors³.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RICK SACCONE: And I know there's some media here. And one of the questions they asked me was, is this President Trump⁴ country? So is this Trump country? Let them know...

(APPLAUSE)

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE⁵: Rick Saccone likes to say he was Trump before Trump was Trump. He's been a state lawmaker since 2010. He's tried to get public schools to teach the Bible. He wanted to make gun owners a protected class against discrimination. He's proudly, deeply conservative. And in this race, he's hoping to ride the president's coattails all the way to Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SACCONE: We see every day the great things that President Trump is doing, the things that he promised, the things that are part of that agenda...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And he's getting a lot of help from the Republican Party. Both President Trump and Vice⁶ President Mike Pence have come to speak to Saccone supporters. And tonight, Secretary of Labor⁷ Alexander Acosta is here to praise Trump's year in office and to send a message. Forget all that noise created by the media.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ALEXANDER ACOSTA: The stock market - up more than 30 percent. And so I'd ask all of you when you go home tonight, check your retirement⁸ accounts. That is not a theoretical increase.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This district went almost 20 points to Trump in 2016. But this race is a whole lot closer than the GOP would like. A Republican loss here would not only be deeply embarrassing for the party, but it would show an erosion of Trump's support that could be a bellwether⁹ for midterm races in the rest of the country. The Republican Party machine and at least one Republican billionaire have pumped millions of dollars into pro-Saccone PACs. And the candidate himself is feeling good about the race.

SACCONE: Everywhere I go, people are mobbing us. People want pictures with us. People are coming up to us. It's very encouraging.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I sat down with Rick Saccone before the event at the country club.

SACCONE: Lulu, how are you?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm very well. Thank you.

He told me there's no daylight between him and the president.

Obviously, you've been endorsed¹⁰ by the president. And you have also said that you embrace his agenda.

SACCONE: It's not necessarily his agenda. Remember, it's our agenda. That's the agenda of cutting taxes and enhancing our Second Amendment¹¹ rights and protecting our unborn children and securing our border. That's the agenda that the people voted in. That's the agenda that I've been running on for a number of years now. So he's having a hard time enacting¹² it because he's getting beat up. He's getting some resistance. And I'm an Air Force guy, so I use Air Force terminology¹³. He needs some some wingmen down there to help him.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The 18th District stretches out over four counties, from the Pittsburgh suburbs out to rural, union-heavy areas. Voters have moved back and forth¹⁴ between parties over the years here. Dave Ball is a longtime Republican strategist in the area.

DAVE BALL: I think that people here are probably more willing than a lot of places to vote their conscience. If you go to someplace like, you know, Philadelphia or, you know, maybe the inner city of Pittsburgh, you'll see 80 percent straight-party voting. Around here, 20 percent would be a big number. So it's an independent place.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And the Democratic candidate for the seat is betting on that.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I'm still leaning.

CONOR LAMB: OK - leaning which way?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I'm kind of leaning both ways right now.

LAMB: OK. That's cool.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Conor Lamb is Saccone's opponent. He comes from a local political family. But this is his first race. And he spent a lot of time knocking on doors, introducing himself to voters. Today, he's at a coffee shop in his hometown Mount Lebanon in Allegheny County.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I think your opponent hasn't been very mature in some of the ads he's run against you. That's one thing that's turned me against him.

LAMB: My mother and grandmother would agree with you.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Those ads the voter is talking about have been flooding the airwaves here. And they have a very specific message.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLITICAL AD)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: His name is Conor Lamb. But in Washington, he'd be one of Nancy Pelosi's sheep.

LAMB: I mean, my people around here know that it's not true. So that is all that we need. I said on the front page of the newspaper on January 8 that I didn't support Nancy Pelosi.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: More about that in a moment.

So where do you to want to sit either way?

LAMB: You guys can tell me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right. Why don't we put you in the hot seat. And I'll sit...

The first thing you notice about Conor Lamb when you sit down with him is that he really is part of a new generation in the Democratic Party.

How old are you?

LAMB: Thirty-three.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That is young. And one of the criticisms that I have heard is that you are untested. And people don't know your voting record. Do you feel like that's like a liability?

LAMB: No. I think that right now people want change. They don't want more of the same. And Mr. Saccone is offering more of the same. He's offering more of the partisanship¹⁵, more of the gridlock. I am for getting things done. I learned a lot becoming an officer in the Marine¹⁶ Corps¹⁷ in this country. And one of the things that they teach you is to have a bias¹⁸ for action. So that requires, you know, a certain pragmatism.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lamb is emphasizing his credentials¹⁹ as a certain kind of candidate. He's a former Marine Corps captain and a prosecutor²⁰ who talks about putting heroin²¹ dealers²² behind bars. He's keeping the national Democratic Party and its leadership at arm's length.

LAMB: One way I could describe myself - maybe it would be just as a Western Pennsylvania Democrat¹. And people around here know what that means.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It means that Lamb is trying to straddle the middle ground on guns and other controversial issues like abortion²³.

LAMB: I am Catholic. And so I personally believe that life begins at conception. But I'm running for Congress, not cardinal²⁴. So I really believe in the separation of church and state. And so I support a woman's right to choose because that's the law of the land. And I will defend and uphold that.

TERRY MADONNA: If you want to win that district, you can't run a liberal Democrat.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's Terry Madonna. He runs the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. He says working-class white voters still feel strongly about President Trump in this area, which will help Saccone. But...

MADONNA: One of the concerns that the Republicans have is that they're losing white, college-educated, female voters. So here's what we're going to look for on election night. In southern Allegheny County, how well does Lamb do there, and does he pick up white, college-educated women?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Women like 70-year-old Kyle Tomer, who we met at the Mount Lebanon Public Library.

Do you feel like other Democrats are energized²⁵? The people that you're talking to - do you...

KYLE TOMER: Yes, I do. I think our grassroots around here are pretty effective. I think there's a lot of little meetings, house meetings that people are going to. And people that haven't been interested in politics, especially women - I see them organizing and having, like, little huddle²⁶ groups.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Mount Lebanon is pretty friendly territory for Lamb. But the real battleground is Washington County, where fracking and natural gas are now king.

KEVIN COURTWRIGHT: Republicans are putting more people to work right now, so that's why I stick with that.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Especially in oil and gas, right?

COURTWRIGHT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's like the - that's the thing.

We meet 29-year-old Kevin Courtwright with his wife and infant daughter at an outlet²⁷ mall in Washington, Pa. He's typical of a lot of folks around here, a union man who works in the energy industry. And he's emblematic²⁸ of the reasons why people flipped²⁹ parties in this county. Republicans are seen as less supportive of unions. And Saccone has held anti-union positions in the past. Democrats, though, are viewed as championing positions that have hurt the fossil fuel industries.

In 2016, Kevin, who works on a gas pipeline³⁰, was out of work for ten months. And he blames that on Democratic policies. In the last election, he voted for President Trump.

COURTWRIGHT: I was glad whenever Trump took over and was able to push the work orders through.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And how are things going now?

COURTWRIGHT: Great - things are going great. I got lots of phone calls.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There's demand.

COURTWRIGHT: Yeah, yeah. There's definitely demand.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Kevin says Saccone's union positions give him pause, but he's still leaning towards voting for him, even though his union has endorsed Lamb. In the end, for Kevin, it's about work and who he thinks will give him more of it. And if there were any doubt about the importance of this race to the national political landscape, look who's coming to town this week - Pennsylvania native Joe Biden, one of the few national Democrats whose blue-collar appeal could help a Democrat running in a conservative-leaning district. And on the other side, President Trump is expected to return to the area before the vote on March 13.

MONTAGNE: And that was our own Lulu Garcia-Navarro in Western Pennsylvania.

1 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

2 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

7 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

8 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

9 bellwether   

n.系铃的公羊，前导，领导者，群众的首领

参考例句：

• University campuses are often the bellwether of change.大学校园往往引领变革的新潮。
• For decades the company was the bellwether of the British economy.几十年来，这家公司一直是英国经济的晴雨表。

10 endorsed   

vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品

参考例句：

• The committee endorsed an initiative by the chairman to enter discussion about a possible merger. 委员会通过了主席提出的新方案，开始就可能进行的并购进行讨论。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The government has broadly endorsed a research paper proposing new educational targets for 14-year-olds. 政府基本上支持建议对14 岁少年实行新教育目标的研究报告。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

12 enacting   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Generally these statutes apply only to wastes from reactors outside the enacting state. 总之，这些法令只适宜用在对付那些来自外州的核废料。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• In addition, the complexion of enacting standards for live working is described. 另外，介绍了带电作业标准的制订情况。

13 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。

14 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

15 Partisanship   

n. 党派性, 党派偏见

参考例句：

• Her violent partisanship was fighting Soames's battle. 她的激烈偏袒等于替索米斯卖气力。
• There was a link of understanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship. ' 比起人间的感情，比起相同的政见，这一点都来得格外重要。 来自英汉文学

16 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

17 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

18 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

19 credentials   

n.证明，资格，证明书，证件

参考例句：

• He has long credentials of diplomatic service.他的外交工作资历很深。
• Both candidates for the job have excellent credentials.此项工作的两个求职者都非常符合资格。

20 prosecutor   

n.起诉人；检察官，公诉人

参考例句：

• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。
• The prosecutor would tear your testimony to pieces.检查官会把你的证言驳得体无完肤。

21 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

22 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

23 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

24 cardinal   

n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的

参考例句：

• This is a matter of cardinal significance.这是非常重要的事。
• The Cardinal coloured with vexation. 红衣主教感到恼火，脸涨得通红。

25 energized   

v.给予…精力，能量( energize的过去式和过去分词 )；使通电

参考例句：

• We are energized by love if we put our energy into loving. 如果我们付出能量去表现爱意，爱就会使我们充满活力。 来自辞典例句
• I am completely energized and feeling terrific. 我充满了活力，感觉非常好。 来自辞典例句

26 huddle   

vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人

参考例句：

• They like living in a huddle.他们喜欢杂居在一起。
• The cold wind made the boy huddle inside his coat.寒风使这个男孩卷缩在他的外衣里。

27 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

28 emblematic   

adj.象征的，可当标志的；象征性

参考例句：

• The violence is emblematic of what is happening in our inner cities. 这种暴力行为正标示了我们市中心贫民区的状况。
• Whiteness is emblematic of purity. 白色是纯洁的象征。 来自辞典例句

29 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

30 pipeline   

n.管道，管线

参考例句：

• The pipeline supplies Jordan with 15 per cent of its crude oil.该管道供给约旦15%的原油。
• A single pipeline serves all the houses with water.一条单管路给所有的房子供水。