Kelly, DiNicola in tight race for 16th District
Of the three U.S. House races Butler County voters will weigh in on Tuesday, the fight for Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District appears to be the closest.
In recent interviews with the Eagle, both Democrat Ron DiNicola and incumbent Republican Mike Kelly agreed they're in for a tight one. Polls do as well: the last three polls of the district, all conducted during October, have the two men within a maximum of 8.6 percentage points of each other and a minimum of just three percentage points.
The most recent, a Susquehanna Polling and Research poll conducted on Oct. 29 and 30, put DiNicola up three percentage points. It's the sole poll showing a Democrat victory in the race, implying some late-season volatility among the district's voters.
“I think it's going to be very close,” Kelly said. “The polls give you some insight, but those are the same polls that in 2016 said Clinton was going to be in the White House.”
DiNicola said President Donald Trump's recent appearance in Erie is evidence of a tight race.
“I think a competitive race is what brought the president to town,” DiNicola said.
Kelly and DiNicola sound eerily similar on other subjects, too. They both have praise for Trump, though only Kelly has the president's support. Kelly emphasized his relationship with the president in an apparent effort to cast doubt on DiNicola's insistence that he would work with Trump.
“It's hard to believe that a freshman would look at an incumbent on the Ways and Means Committee and think he'd work better with the president,” Kelly said. “He would not even be relevant. He'd be a back bencher.
”DiNicola suggested that Kelly works a little too closely with the executive.
“I will work with the president when his policies are good for Western Pennsylvania,” DiNicola said. “But my opponent has a 97 percent voting record with the president. I don't think it's helpful for anyone to vote in lockstep.”
DiNicola seemed to be referencing the polling analyst website FiveThirtyEight's Trump Score metric, which shows Kelly as voting in step with Trump's position 96.7 percent of the time. The vast majority of Kelly's votes fall in line with Trump's preferences, but sometimes they disagree. For instance, last year Kelly voted in favor of sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea which Trump opposed.
Both campaigns seem determined to paint the other as financially dishonest. Earlier this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ran television advertisements in the district claiming that Kelly's personal wealth increased while in office. These days, Kelly gleefully points out that fact-checkers show that the DCCC's source for said claim actually indicates the opposite.Another claim in the ad, which suggests that Kelly wrote in a hand-out in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for those in the automotive business like himself, takes the truth to an extra level.Kelly voted both in committee and in the U.S. House on legislation that included a provision that benefitted car dealers by specifically preserving a tax deduction on the interest from loans such dealers use to keep cars on their lots.However, there isn't any public evidence suggesting Kelly himself actually added the provision.Kelly has made his own seemingly unfounded financial accusations against DiNicola.“The biggest recipient of dark money is my opponent,” Kelly said.The Kelly campaign has raised significantly more cash from PACs, or political action committees, than DiNicola, according to watchdog group Open Secrets. About 66 percent, or about $1.6 million, of Kelly's cash came from PAC contributions. Only 13 percent, or $183,000, of DiNicola's came from such groups.The total amount raised for Kelly is about $2.4 million, compared to about $1.4 million for DiNicola.DiNicola raised about $155,000 from small dollar donors, or donors giving under $200. Kelly raised just $42,000 from such meager sources.Both candidates have very little undisclosed or incompletely disclosed funding remaining, Open Secrets showed Friday.The pair claim they've been spending their time campaigning throughout the full district, which includes at least some of Butler, Erie, Crawford, Lawrence and Mercer counties.They seem to be hearing different things.“They believe fundamentally that this Congress does not get anything done,” DiNicola said. “I'm hearing that among Butler County folks, just as much as other counties.”Asked what issues he hears about from area voters, Kelly said he hears praise.
“They say please don't stop what you're doing,” Kelly said. “They say America is winning again.”Kelly argues that last year's tax cuts should ensure political victory for those responsible. And what about those who aren't seeing and haven't received its benefits? “It's not true,” Kelly said. “When people have lower utility bills this winter, that's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. When they have more take-home pay, that's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The truth of the matter is, by every measurable means, every part of the country has benefitted from this.”Out of health care, immigration, tariffs, abortion and guns, county-level Internet search data released by Google shows that health care is the most-searched issue in Butler County.DiNicola claimed that Kelly is “deeply invested” in insurance company lobbying. Kelly claimed that DiNicola is “really in favor of government driven health care.”“They've had control of Congress and they didn't come up with an alternative,” DiNicola argues.Kelly claims his opponent is overstating his ability on the subject.“I'm so tired of politicians making promises they can't keep,” Kelly said.Both agreed that costs of insurance need to be kept down both for businesses and individuals.Kelly brought up pre-existing medical conditions, saying “we've always been in favor of making sure pre-existing conditions are covered.” In a debate with DiNicola earlier this month, Kelly cited a Washington Post fact-check which refuted a statement by a California Democrat who claimed that the Republican health care bill wouldn't cover pre-existing conditions for 129 million people.The Washington Post responded to Kelly last week, pointing out that their fact-check was in reference to the specific number of people, not whether the bill would have affected people with such conditions.At the time of the law's consideration, the Congressional Budget Office found that about one-sixth of Americans could've been priced out of such coverage, the newspaper reported in its refutation of Kelly.DiNicola is a former Marine and an attorney who grew up in Erie. Kelly is an automotive dealer who grew up in Butler.Their race to be U.S. Representative of Pennsylvania's 16th congressional District will come to a head Tuesday.
