Today’s special election
We’ve written before about the surprising Democratic successes in special elections in the south and midwest and what these might tell us about the races in NY-25, NY-26, and NY-29. There’s another one today in Louisiana’s sixth Congressional district. The Democratic candidate is favored although the district is very conservative. Here’s a bit about the way the way race is going from Congressional Quarterly:
That makes Saturday’s primary something of a test of a strategy that the Republicans hope to deploy widely in this fall’s national House campaign. Though the Democrats hold major advantages at this point in the national campaign — in terms of fundraising, candidate recruitment, incumbent retention and public opinion concerning the two parties — Republican planners contend they have a trump card: There are 61 seats currently held by Democrats in districts that favored President Bush in 2004, compared to just eight currently held by Republicans in districts that went for Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry .
When I hear this kind of thing, I wonder how many of those 61 districts that went for Bush in 2004 would go for him now. I think that number is pretty close to zero.
For all you Kuhl/Massa observers out there, here’s a question: how would Bush do against a Democratic candidate in 2008? My feeling is that he’d lose badly.
Update: A Survey USA poll has Democrat Don Cazayoux with 50% support, with 41% for GOP candidate Woody Jenkins.
Bush would lose badly against a Democrat.
That said, I still think the “districts that favored Bush in ‘04″ metric is a decent one to single out conservative districts. Bush was a mediocre president presiding over a war that wasn’t going too well, running against an OK-but-not-great Kerry in 2004. There was nothing in that election, except perhaps the war, to make people vote outside their natural comfort zones.
The difference this time is the war is very unpopular and that will swing some districts if the incumbent is seen as a war supporter.
I agree it’s a decent metric, but an overly optimistic one.
[...] Democrat Don Cazayoux won the special election in Louisiana’s sixth Congressional district that we wrote about earlier today. [...]