In results that were no surprise to anyone, Trump backer and stalwart conservative State Rep. Fred Keller swept the special election Tuesday night to fill the seat of fellow Republican Rep. Tom Marino, who resigned from Congress earlier this year.
Keller rolled up 68 percent of the vote over Democrat Marc Friedenberg, an attorney who lost decisively to Marino last November.
Such an outcome was predictable in a district that gave President Donald Trump a margin of 2-to-1 in 2016. As G. Terry Madonna, the premier pollster in the Keystone State told Newsmax, "Special elections bring out the base voters of each party, and in the 12th that gives the Republicans a huge advantage."
What was noteworthy was that in a state whose electoral votes are considered critical to the president's re-election next year, Keller, 53, campaigned as an unabashed Trump supporter and as a conservative on economic and social issues.
"Fred has been one of the most fiscally conservative members of the Pennsylvania legislature," observed Lowman Henry of the conservative Lincoln Institute, "His landslide election to Congress will give us a powerful new pro-growth voice in the nation's capital."
Area sources say Keller also is a genuine "man of the people." He never went to college and, before winning his legislative seat, was a plant manager for a wood cabinet supplier.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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