There is a closely contested special election for a Republican-vacated House seat in MS-01. The Democrat, Travis Childers, is slightly favored, since he narrowly outperformed the Republican nominee in the primary (49%-46% of the overall vote). One of the interesting aspects of the campaign is that Republicans, and their big, 527, TV-ad sugar daddy this year, Freedom Watch, have tried to nationalize the campaign by running ads that try to connect Childers to Obama and Rev. Wright. If this fails in such a conservative and Republican district, it is pretty fair to assume that the attacks will fail everywhere.
Here are some excerpts from the DCCC memo on the campaign, that I think explain the situation pretty well:
North Mississippians are going to the polls today for their fourth election in two months to fill the House seat of Roger Wicker who was appointed to replace former Senator Trent Lott.
Win or lose, there is no good news in today's election for House Republicans. According to the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, "This district shouldn't be in play for Democrats in federal races. George W. Bush won the district in 2000 (60%) and 2004 (63%)." The fact that MS-01 is a competitive race reflects the strength of Democratic candidate Travis Childers, the damage to the Republican brand, and the depth of the NRCC's problems this cycle.
After losing the last two competitive special elections for Republican seats (IL-14 and LA-06), the NRCC and its conservative allies have gone all out to try to hold MS-01. Republicans have had to spend nearly 20 percent of their cash on hand on a reliably Republican district. Democrats have spent only 4 percent of our cash on hand. The conservative group Freedom's Watch spent at least $460,000. In total, Republicans have spent at least $1.7 million on MS-01.
Vice President Dick Cheney, Governor Haley Barbour, former Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Thad Cochran, former Senator Trent Lott, and Senator Roger Wicker have all campaigned on Republican Greg Davis' behalf in what Politico calls, "one of the safest Republican areas in the nation." Additionally, President Bush, Laura Bush, and Senator McCain recorded automated calls that were sent to voters throughout the district. (...)
Davis, the NRCC, and the conservative group Freedom's Watch all used Barack Obama in ads by all three and Davis even ran an ad trying to tie Childers to Reverend Wright.(...)
The Bottom Line
The last time a party gained three seats in a special election was more than 30 years ago.
Win or lose today, the fact this race is competitive is bad news for the NRCC, and there are more than 40 Republican incumbent and Republican challenger districts with better Democratic performances than MS-01.
MS-01 is the third time this year that the NRCC has had to spend a significant percentage of their cash on hand to defend a reliably Republican district. The NRCC simply can't get off defense if Republican districts President Bush won easily by more than 60 percent are in play.
Republicans are testing out their national message and national infrastructure in this campaign. And yet, despite it being a heavily conservative district with a partisan voting index of about R +11 at the federal level, Democrats could still win. Travis Childrs won't be a progressive champion in the House, and if he wins we will probably have to spend a decent amount of money defending this seat in the future, but he will be another Democrat, and probably vote with Dems about 65% of the time or so. That will be better than the roughly 1% of the time we will get if Greg Davis wins.
A win tonight would give Democrats 236 seats in the House, and up our forecasted gains to a net of around 20 more seats in November. The possibility of a large Democratic trifecta continues to increase. More on that in the coming days as I roll out my Senate and House forecasts.
Will Bardwell, Swing State Project, and The Thorn Papers are some blogs covering the MS-01 campaign. I will live-blog the results tonight, right along with the West Virginia primary and the Nebraska Senate primary.
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