When Sean Parnell received a call asking him if he would be interested in speaking at the Republican National Convention, the Pittsburgh native didn’t even pause.
“There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation for me,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I come from a family that is sort of split down the middle politically. My whole life, watching conventions has always been woven into the fabric of our family.”
Parnell, a decorated Army veteran who served in combat on the battlefields in Afghanistan, is running as a Republican against incumbent Democrat Rep. Conor Lamb for the 17th Congressional District. It’s a suburban house seat that begins six miles outside of Pittsburgh and stretches northwest to Beaver and Butler counties.
Ten years ago, Parnell said he was driving home from Fort Drum after just being outprocessed from the Army. “I had just finished up rehabbing a traumatic brain injury. I was medically retired. I intended to go into the Army and make it a career, I intended to join the Special Forces and try out for Delta and do all that stuff for 20 years, and all of a sudden I have to pull out before my time. I had no idea what I was going to do.”
“Having the opportunity to speak at
Most members of Congress don’t get prime-time speaking slots at national conventions, and candidates who haven’t been elected yet are even rarer. So it’s surprising that both candidates in this congressional election are getting speaking time at their national conventions. During the Democratic National Convention, Lamb appeared with 16 other “rising stars” in a collage of brief videos from the areas they represent, with Lamb’s video featuring Pittsburgh in the background.
The 17th Congressional District was redrawn in 2018 ahead of the midterm elections because the Democratic majority in the state Supreme Court threw out the lines drawn by Republican state legislators after the 2010 Census, arguing that it violated the Free and Equal Elections clause of the state constitution. The district now includes the densely populated upper-middle-class neighborhood of Mt. Lebanon (where Lamb grew up and still lives) as well as the working-class, rural, and middle-class towns of Beaver and Butler counties.
Lamb squared off with a fellow member of Congress, Republican Keith Rothfus, for his win in the 2018 Democratic wave election. Trump won that district by 10,000 votes in 2016. Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican who was also on the ticket that year, won the area by slightly more.
The 39-year-old Parnell said his journey to the Republican National Convention began, like a lot of other people’s, with bumps in the road — not just in his career but also politically.
