A few months ago, I posted my 2018 Midterm piece which covered every Senate, Gubernatorial, and US House election that occurred that year. I initially assumed that meant I’d be done with US House elections until 2020, but it seems I still have more to cover. We actually have three Special Elections to the US House that will be held in 2019. Two of those are being held in North Carolina later this year. The third election however, is in my home state of Pennsylvania… and it will occur later this month.

This special election was called after the previous rep Tom Marino resigned earlier this year. Unfortunately, this race seems pretty stacked in the Republican’s favor since this district has a partisan index rating of R+ 17, and Tom Marino won re-election over his opponent Marc Friedenberg with 66% of the vote. The Republican nominee running for Marino’s old seat is Fred keller, who has co-sponsored a bill to ban same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania and gave us this scorching hot take about the Green New Deal.

Supporting a Green New Deal — it’s not about the environment. It’s about control, like many of the things,” Keller said. “They want to control what car you can drive, what house you can live in, how you fuel your business, and what food you can eat.

Conservatives never cease to amaze me in just how far into the gutter they continue to reach. The guy who co-sponsored a bill to control whether or not consenting adults can get married, has voted in favor of a ton of anti-abortion legislation that keeps women from choosing what they could do with their bodies, and who was rated 0% by the Constructor’s Association of Western Pennsylvania which clearly indicates he is not in favor of union rights and thus wants to control what workers can and can’t do, is mad about being controlled.

For fucks sake, he sounds like a teenager that’s mad his mom won’t let him go out past midnight, only in this case, the angry mom who is just trying to keep his idiot son from sneaking out only for him to end up in prison after being caught drunk and needing to be bailed out for the third time this year, is AMERICA!! Just because you choose to bury your head in the sand and deny climate science does not mean that climate change is not real, but it DOES mean that your stupidity will take us all down with you!

Fred Keller argues a lot like an online troll who says something so monumentally stupid that no one wants to take them seriously, and that whenever someone points out how stupid they are, they assume that it is because no one can argue against their points and not because what they are arguing is so below the standards of intelligent debate that no sane person can pretend to take them seriously.

It is only natural that his democratic opponent Marc Friedenberg has not had the patience for Keller’s shit in the debates, although he honestly held his temper better than I could have. Considering that Keller is a Trump supporter whose responses to his opponents are to trivialize the fact that a foreign country may have interfered in our election and to split hairs over small word choices that were already clarified, I think Keller got off nicely when he got tame responses like “shame on you!” or “that’s a pathetic argument.”

I really have to applaud Friedenberg for telling his opponent off in the first place. While I understand that composure generally looks better from an optics standpoint, I think it makes Friedenberg look much more relatable when he acknowledges that the emperor not only has no clothes, but has a huge visible erection as well. Friedenberg really deserves to win this election over Keller.

Friedenberg is a better choice in nearly every conceivable way. Friedenberg has a prolific history as a healthcare activist and as the lawyer who sued the Wall Street Banks responsible for the financial crash ten years ago. He clearly shows a lot of dedication to his beliefs and shows that he genuinely cares about civil rights, while Keller just tries to skirt past any mention of gay rights issues and just goes “I see them the same as straight guys even though I wanted to ban their right to get married.”

Unfortunately, Keller IS still running in a red district with an R+17 rating, so he is still bound to have a lot of people voting for him even if he is running a weak campaign. Considering that Friedenberg also lost against Tom Marino last year by such a large margin, it means that the odds are definitely stacked against him. If there was any time where Friedenberg could win though, it would be now.

There are a few clues that indicate that Friedenberg could have a shot at this. The first of these is that Fred Keller performed so poorly on his previous debate with Friedenberg that President Pussygrabber needed to step in and give him an endorsement. This is clearly a sign that the GOP considers Friedenberg a genuine threat. On top of this, Friedenberg clearly knows how to use Social media more effectively, which could result in gaining some of that elusive millennial vote. Just look at the amount of followers that Friedenberg has on Twitter compared to Keller. It is a clear sign that he’s doing a pretty damn good job at it.

Unfortunately he’s still at a pretty big disadvantage, but there is one way we can boost his chances. While I can’t vote for him due to not living in his district, I do still plan to give as much to his campaign as I can. It would seriously send the biggest fuck you to Trump and the rest of these Republican scumbags to just take this seat that they are expecting to just waltz right on into. So yes, I am going to suggest to donate to his campaign. Friedenberg is not accepting funds from PACs so he could use as much as he could get. Here is the donation link.

Keep in mind that even if he doesn’t win, more campaign money means more awareness he spreads and more brand recognition he could gain. It could really come in handy if he decides to run again in 2020 or if he runs for Senate or Governor in 2022. And I will throw in that it would mean a lot to me to have one less Republican scumbag representing my home state.

The election will be held later this month on May 22nd, so if you live in Pennsylvania’s 12th district and are registered then be sure to get out there and give Friedenberg your vote. If you are unsure which district you are a part of then you can find out here. If the section that says “US House” lists you in the 12th district and you are registered to vote, then you can go vote for Friedenberg. If you won’t be able to make it that day then you can file an absentee ballot until May 14th.

Update: Fred Keller won the election. Not only that, but the percentage by which he won was fairly similar to that of Tom Marino’s 2018 win. As disappointing as it is that Friedenberg didn’t pull off an upset, it is notable that Trump even needed to step in in the first place. If Trump didn’t, the race probably would have been closer but Keller would have likely still won. Voter turnout was about half of what it was in 2018 so it is entirely likely that Trump just showed up as insurance for Keller. Additionally, Republicans also won the three Special Elections to the Pennsylvania state legislature, but each of those were also among the reddest districts in the state so that is to be expected. At the very least, we are still at the same place as at the end of 2018’s blue wave so that’s a good sign.

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