Representative Connor Lamb speaks with a group of people attending a political event Saturday in Williamsport. Lamb visited with democratic supporters as he seeks the parties nomination for US Senate in the Primary Election next month. At left is Dave Raker, Lycoming County Committeeman. PAT CROSSLEY/Sun-Gazette

With the control of the U.S. Senate to be determined in the fall, Democratic primary candidate Conor Lamb, speaking in Williamsport Saturday, stressed the importance of the upcoming election.

“This campaign is so important. The stakes are so incredibly high,” Lamb said.

“Serving in D.C. these last few years when we’ve been through so much you really get to see, from the House side of things, how important it is to get even one more Democratic senator, ideally two. We’ve passed such a big series of bills that just go nowhere over there. They don’t even get debated. They don’t even talk about it,” Lamb said.

“It’s unfortunate. The whole idea of the Senate is that it supposed to be place where people debate the big issues of our time. Instead they hide behind the filibuster and duck their whole job,” he added.

Lamb currently represents the state’s 17th Congressional district, which includes much of the Pittsburgh-area suburbs and all of Beaver County. He won a special election in March 2018 and went on to win re-election in 2018 and 2020. He is running in the primary against fellow Democrats, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman,, Malcolm Kenyatta and Alex Khalil. The candidates are seeking to fill the seat left vacant by Republican Senator Pat Toomey who did not seek re-election.

Lamb, 37, who joked about someone asking if he was old enough to run for the Senate, told the group at the event that he has been through three campaigns in his home district which looks a lot like this region.

He noted that the Williamsport is not unlike the district that he represents.

“Our party has incredible potential to win in these places still, we do,” he said.

“I know that’s not what you would ever encounter reading in the national media or being around here every day, seeing trump signs and flags…but we have incredible potential to succeed in these areas if we can just get on those doorsteps, in those people’s living rooms, in front of them. Eliminate the distractions and keep the issues focused on the economic bread and butter,” he stressed.

Social Security and Medicare, according to Lamb, are the two most “powerful issues” in Pennsylvania which has an elderly electorate.

“And most Democratic candidates forget to talk about them,” Lamb asserted.

“What’s the number one issue you hear about in the news domestically right now-inflation. How many people in our state are living on a fixed income and as the cost of groceries and gas have gone up, what are they supposed to do,” Lamb asked.

“If that’s the debate the Republicans want to have in this general election, I can’t wait to get started. I don’t know if you noticed, they don’t have any answers on gas or on groceries or on inflation of any kind. That’s mostly because the entire world is going through this at once. We had a global pandemic and now a war. It’s not the fault of any one party or any one country’s leader. That’s why it’s happening to Europe at the same time it’s happening to us and everywhere else,” he said.

Moving on from inflation, Lamb talked about Social Security and the fact that increases in benefits are usually followed by higher Medicare payments wiping out any increase.

“That’s wrong. The average Social Security payout in America at this point is $16,000 a year. It’s a poverty wage,” he said, adding that in many cases other means of support such as pensions for retirees have been eliminated.

A bill that would alleviate the problem has zero support from the Republicans, Lamb stated.

He also talked about another bill which would allow Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs in order to decrease costs which would then increase benefits included in Medicare. He noted that the Republicans in the Senate have filibustered and blocked the bill.

When asked following his presentation why Republicans are focusing more on cultural issues such as Critical Race Theory, Lamb contended, “It’s because they don’t have anything to say to normal working people on the economy.”

“Let’s talk about the economy. Let’s talk about costs going up and how we help people get their costs down. Republicans don’t have any ideas on that so they want to change the conservation to Critical Race Theory which isn’t even being taught in our schools. They just want to change it to other things as a distraction,” he said.

“They’ve been doing the same things for years. Where has it gotten us? Like I said, we’ve been trying to get the Social Security checks to go up the entire time I’ve been in Congress with none of their help,” he said.

Lamb is the latest candidate to come to the area to seek support in the Primary Election to be held May 17. Williamsport Mayor, Derek Slaughter, who attended the event, sees these visits as a good thing.

“A lot of the candidates are coming through Williamsport and Lycoming County. It’s critical that we pay attention to each of the candidates that are coming through and what they stand for, the campaign and issues that they’re running on,” Slaughter said.

“From a mayoral standpoint I think it’s great that they’re coming through Williamsport, to take the time. It shows that this area is very important to them,” he added.

In the past, Slaughter noted, the area wasn’t visited by candidates, particularly those running for the U.S. Senate.

“To have a sitting Congressman come through, the lieutenant governor came through and (State) Attorney General Shapiro, who is a gubernatorial candidate will be coming through within the next few weeks,” Slaughter said.

“My plea is just to have folks pay attention. Tell a friend of a friend. Make sure we get out to the polls. Voting is extremely important. This election again and this primary, where historically folks don’t come out as much in a primary as a general, we have to tell everyone-this primary is extremely important,” he added.

He pointed to everything going on in the state, the country and in the world which makes it critical for people to get out to vote in this election.

“Your elected officials matter. Your vote does matter and the decisions they make obviously matter and affect all of us. It’s critical that we get out and exercise that right to vote,” Slaughter said.

Local resident, Sharon Koons, who attended the event also sees the elections this year as critical.

“We can’t lose the Senate. If the Republicans take over the Senate nothing will be done during the last two years of Biden’s administration. It will be the same as it was with (former President) Obama. They won’t let him pass anything,” she said.

“It’s dangerous. I don’t think people take it seriously-how close we are to losing our democracy, especially after Jan. 6,” she added.