BLUE WAVE? GOP Panic Spreads to Pennsylvania.

Josh Kraushaar:

Republicans are learning an uncomfortable reality about the political environment for 2018: Tax cuts, conservative culture-war staples, and even Nancy Pelosi herself probably won’t be enough to overcome the deep hole that President Trump has put them in. With the White House awash in scandal and struggling to articulate its agenda, the political mood has turned so grim that Republicans are in danger of losing an upcoming special election in the heart of Trump country.

That’s the lesson to draw from the surprisingly competitive campaign Democrat Conor Lamb is running in a Pittsburgh-area district Trump easily carried by 20 points, surviving millions of dollars in outside GOP attack ads portraying Lamb as a liberal in disguise. Even a close loss in such a reliably conservative area would raise red flags that Democrats are on the verge of a major landslide in the November midterms.

It doesn’t look good right now, but Democrat-Media Complex overreach on gun control (see last night’s Oscars — or better yet: Don’t) might change things in a hurry. Provided, of course, that the media onslaught doesn’t cow Republicans out of running on the issue.

A booming economy would help mightily, too, but last week’s steel and aluminum tariffs added unnecessary uncertainty to the mix.