Republican Sean Parnell won’t concede in 17th District, criticizes Conor Lamb for declaring victory in tight race

Republican candidate Sean Parnell said Thursday he will not concede in the 17th Congressional District race against incumbent U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb until all eligible votes have been reported and a clear winner is verified.

As of Friday morning, Lamb, 36, a Mt. Lebanon Democrat, led Parnell, 39, a Trump-backed candidate from Ohio Township, by about 4,300 votes, with the incumbent having collected 50.5% of the votes counted compared to Parnell’s 49.5%, according to unofficial tallies reported by the state.

After keeping mum on Election Night and all Wednesday, even after Lamb declared victory during brief remarks outside a Steamfitters hall in Pittsburgh, Parnell took to Twitter to assert that he hasn’t given up yet: “Until every legal vote has been counted & the results of this race have been tabulated,” Parnell wrote, “I will neither declare victory or concede defeat.”

Shortly before Parnell’s tweet, his campaign manager, Andrew Brey, issued a statement criticizing Lamb for claiming victory “practically the minute he took a slim lead in this race.

“Unless Lamb has a sixth sense that helps him precisely determine vote totals from outstanding precincts in this razor’s edge race,” Brey said, “he should exercise the restraint that he was calling for while significantly behind.”

Lamb claims victory Wednesday night

Lamb pointed out he had not received any concession call from Parnell when the congressman stepped behind a podium in the Steamfitters parking lot in Pittsburgh’s Duquesne Heights neighborhood to assert his reelection shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday.

“I can say confidently tonight that the people … have placed their trust in me for another two years and are sending me back to serve in the next Congress,” Lamb told an audience of news reporters, campaign staffers and viewers watching on the campaign’s live Facebook feed.

Lamb said during his brief remarks that Congress has work to do to show that government can “be a force for good in American life.”

“We can demand that our leaders respect each other and the people that they represent. We can demand that they tell the truth. And we can demand that they put working people and the men and women of our unions ahead of special interests,” Lamb said. “You have demanded that from me, and you can always expect that from me.”

At the time, the Pennsylvania Department of State website showed the two candidates separated by mere hundreds of votes, with Lamb narrowing in on Parnell’s early lead based primarily on in-person votes in Allegheny, Beaver and Butler counties as more mail-in votes were tabulated.

There’s no hard-and-fast rule or vote threshold to dictate when a candidate should announce a win or phone their opponent to accept defeat, said G. Terry Madonna, political scientist and director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. He noted there have been examples in which a candidate conceded only for results to show days later that they actually won the seat, and vice versa.

“It’s politics,” Madonna said. “The candidates, they’re going to do and say whatever they think works for them. Why not — that’s why they’re running — and they’re going to put a positive spin on anything they can.”

Lamb used his victory speech to emphasize unity and making government “work again.”

“I know that many of our fellow Americans have different views. I know that there is a very real lack of trust in our government, in politics, in politicians, and even in each other,” Lamb said. “But I still believe that we can ease these tensions among ourselves by choosing to focus on the goals that we all really do share.” He mentioned responding to the pandemic, protecting affordable health care, creating more good-paying jobs and mitigating the impact of climate change.

Lamb: “Many of our fellow Americans have different views. I know that there is a very real lack of trust in our gov’t, in politics, in politicians, even in each other.

I still believe that we can ease these tensions by choosing to focus on the goals that we all really do share.” pic.twitter.com/yl1bK2HKpG

— Natasha Lindstrom (@NewsNatasha) November 5, 2020

Lamb spoke against an American flag backdrop flanked by digital signs that read, “We did it!” and “You did it!” The same staging had been set up on Tuesday night, when Lamb was set to make an appearance but opted not to while early and incomplete results showed Parnell take an early lead, buoyed by large margins from in-person votes in Beaver and Butler counties. Beaver County did not begin mail-in ballot counting until Wednesday, and Butler County’s counting was slowed due to mechanical issues as they waited for a second scanner to arrive on Wednesday

“It’s clear that there won’t be enough votes reported tonight to make a call in #PA17,” Lamb posted to his Twitter account shortly after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. “But I feel great about what we’re seeing & look forward to every vote being counted. Get some sleep.”

As more results came in Wednesday, Parnell’s lead started to shrink. In the morning, Parnell led by 14%, and in the afternoon he retained a 6% edge. But by 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Parnell’s lead narrowed to less than 1,800 votes.

With most of the outstanding ballots mail-in and leaning Democratic, the narrowing lead was enough to give Lamb’s campaign confidence in securing the incumbent’s seat.

By 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Department of State results updated to show Lamb ahead by about 800 votes.

Lamb said he expected Biden to pull off a win once mail-in vote counting gets completed and despite declaring his own victory, he reiterated the importance of tabulating every vote and why observers have warned about the so-called “red mirage” based on Pennsylvania’s delay in starting to count mail-in ballots.

“Everyone who cast a vote, whether it was at a polling place or by mail, has the same right to have their vote counted, and in different places they’ve done that in a different order,” Lamb said. “Everyone just needs to be patient long enough for these votes to be counted.”

Parnell says he will ‘accept will of voters’

Madonna didn’t offer an opinion on Lamb’s self-declared victory, but the pollster said in general — and especially when it comes to presidential contenders Donald Trump and Joe Biden — candidates should heed caution in tight races in an election year complicated by factors such as mail-in and absentee voting changes, record-high turnout and a litany of legal challenges already in the works.

President Trump prematurely declared victory via social media Wednesday in battleground states such as North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania — where more than 1 million eligible votes statewide had yet to be counted. On Thursday, Trump tweeted, “STOP THE COUNT!”

“The votes have all been cast, but this is a very strange election, and the fact of the matter is that both sides ought to step back and say nothing about who won,” Madonna said. “It’s one thing to say, ‘We’re beating …’ or ‘We think we’re going to win.’ There are lots of things that can be said short of declaring victory.”

“The bottom line here is that you have to think about whether you have a chance of winning and you have to think about the legal implications,” said Madonna, citing possible court decisions on mail-in ballots postmarked by Tuesday that did not arrive until one to three days later, among other lawsuits being filed by the Trump administration.

Brey said Parnell’s campaign staff has been closely monitoring voting results over the past 24 hours, including “the votes already counted, the votes yet to be counted, and widely reported irregularities in those votes.”

“Whether those irregularities end up meaningful or not,” said Brey, “it is abundantly clear that this election cannot be decided until every vote is counted and verified as legal.”

Reiterating Parnell’s pitch as a “law-and-order” candidate, Brey also said that after a “full and fair accounting of all legal ballots,” the GOP challenger “will accept the will of the voters at that time, no matter the outcome.”