Childers wins Miss. special election

[EV_Ares]

Democrats picked up a northern Mississippi House seat in one of the most conservative-minded districts in the country tonight -- an upset victory that will carry significant ramifications into the November elections.

With 370 of 462 precincts reporting, the Democratic nominee, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers, leads Republican Greg Davis, 51 to 49 percent. The Associated Press has called the race for Childers.

The victory marks the Democrats’ third straight special election pickup in as many months, and is poised to hurt the Republican party’s already-flagging morale and prompt a new round of finger-pointing among the already fractured GOP caucus.

The special election was held to fill the seat of former Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who was appointed to serve out the remainder of Sen. Trent Lott’s term last December. Wicker had never faced a competitive race since first elected in 1994, and the district gave President Bush 62 percent of the vote in 2004.

The results amount to a rebuke of the Republican strategy to nationalize the race and associate Childers with Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Obama held low approval ratings in the district, but the nearly $2 million that GOP groups poured into northern Mississippi failed to make the race a referendum on the national political landscape.

Republicans dispatched a lineup of heavy hitters in the campaign’s final week, including a pre-election stop Monday by Vice President Dick Cheney. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and First Lady Laura Bush recorded automated calls into the district urging voters to support Davis.

A GOP House leadership aide told the Politico last week that “if we don’t win in Mississippi, I think you are going to see a lot of people running around here looking for windows to jump out of.”

The $1.27 million that the NRCC spent in this heavily Republican district amounted to nearly 20 percent of their entire cash-on-hand. The committee has now spent over $3 million to defend three conservative House seats, losing all three of them, and are ill-equipped financially to fully compete in an ever-widening playing field of House seats.

For his part, Childers effectively downplayed the national implications of the contest, instead framing the race as a geographic battle between his home base in the 20 largely rural counties in the northeast corner of Mississippi and Davis’ base in the newer and fast-growing Memphis suburbs.

Childers scored large margins of victory – and improved turnout in most of the district’s smaller rural counties and his home county of Prentiss – and managed to slightly cut Davis’ margin of victory in his home base around the South Memphis suburbs.

Link:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0508/Childers_wins_Miss_special_election.html

[Selatius]

1. Watch the Republicans form the circular firing squad in coming days. nt

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

2. Who's Rev. Wright?

:sarcasm:

Seems like the Repug smear campaign test run of the despicable Rev. Wright ad just isn't working. It didn't work in NC. It didn't work in LA. And it hasn't worked tonight in MS!!!

[saltpoint]

3. Thank you, voters from this district in MS. We gratefully accept your

verdict with a view toward building stronger majorities in the 111th Congress.

Thank you.

[klook]

4. "Like Tupelo honey..."

That is great news. Thanks for the update.

[madrchsod]

5. that is 3 in a row .....