WASHINGTON _ It was the day of a special election in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, and the Republican candidate was missing.
Never mind that national Republicans were spending millions on the Pittsburgh-area race, desperate to avoid a humiliating defeat in a district that President Donald Trump had won by nearly 20 percentage points. As Republican Rick Saccone's watch party got underway that March night, according to three sources with direct knowledge, his own campaign couldn't find him.
"We had panicked calls from our folks in the state being like, 'We can't find him.' We were like, 'Yeah, we have an hour left until he loses,'" said one senior GOP official heavily involved in the national House fight. "It was fitting. At that point, we could just laugh and have a nice little encapsulation of the campaign."
