Super PAC signals Pennsylvania primary could get rough

A super PAC backing Pennsylvania Senate candidate Conor Lamb is warning prospective donors that he is trailing frontrunner John Fetterman by 30 percentage points in the Democratic primary — and that the public’s perception of his opponent’s ideology must change for Lamb to have a shot.

“[P]rimary voters don’t yet see Fetterman as the liberal he is,” reads a memo circulated by the pro-Lamb group Penn Progress, which was obtained by POLITICO. “For Conor Lamb to have a path in the primary, this dynamic needs to change.”

Unlike the bloodbath taking place in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary, the contest on the Democratic side has been a relatively tame affair. Fetterman and Lamb haven’t laid a finger on each other on TV, and no outside Democratic groups have aired attack ads on television either.

The nine-page slide deck disseminated by Penn Progress after a recent fundraising call with donors suggests that could soon change.

The document highlights the testing of aggressive negative messaging against Fetterman, who is Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, including that he is a “dangerous radical who proudly calls himself a socialist,” “supports far-left policies like a $34 trillion-dollar government takeover of healthcare,” and has “spoken at Defund the Police rallies and wants to release convicted felons back onto our streets.”