Miss. GOP might lose House seats
By: Josh Kraushaar
The Politico
April 23, 2008
Republicans are privately bracing for the once-unthinkable possibility that they could lose two House seats in the heavily conservative Deep South in special elections next month.
Their concerns were deepened after the party’s nominee in a ruby-red northern Mississippi seat, Southaven Mayor Greg Davis, nearly lost to the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s special election, barely topping 46 percent of the vote. His opponent, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers, won 49 percent of the vote, coming within several hundred votes of winning the seat outright.
Instead, the race will be heading to a closely watched runoff on May 13.
Under normal circumstances, the district would be out of reach for any Democrat. Sen. Roger Wicker (R) represented it for 13 years and never faced a competitive race after his first election in 1994. The district gave President Bush 62 percent of the vote in 2004.
But there are peculiar circumstances in this race — as well as in the battle to replace former Rep. Richard Baker (R) in Louisiana. Neither party will claim that Democratic wins in either of these races would be due to a national trend with tendrils in the South — but such losses would unquestionably give Democrats new bragging rights to trash the beleaguered GOP brand.
(Continued here.)
The Politico
April 23, 2008
Republicans are privately bracing for the once-unthinkable possibility that they could lose two House seats in the heavily conservative Deep South in special elections next month.
Their concerns were deepened after the party’s nominee in a ruby-red northern Mississippi seat, Southaven Mayor Greg Davis, nearly lost to the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s special election, barely topping 46 percent of the vote. His opponent, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers, won 49 percent of the vote, coming within several hundred votes of winning the seat outright.
Instead, the race will be heading to a closely watched runoff on May 13.
Under normal circumstances, the district would be out of reach for any Democrat. Sen. Roger Wicker (R) represented it for 13 years and never faced a competitive race after his first election in 1994. The district gave President Bush 62 percent of the vote in 2004.
But there are peculiar circumstances in this race — as well as in the battle to replace former Rep. Richard Baker (R) in Louisiana. Neither party will claim that Democratic wins in either of these races would be due to a national trend with tendrils in the South — but such losses would unquestionably give Democrats new bragging rights to trash the beleaguered GOP brand.
(Continued here.)
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