While most political aficionados were watching the presidential
campaign, another Republican lost a special congressional election.
Last week Democrat Travis Childers beat Republican Greg Davis in
Mississippi’s First Congressional District. The seat was previously
held by Republican Roger Wicker, who is now in the Senate, making
this a Democratic pickup.
Score one for the Democrats. Or three, actually — this is the
third time the Democrats have won a special congressional election
this year in a traditionally GOP-friendly district. Former House
Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat fell to the Democrats when political
neophyte Bill Foster defeated Republican Jim Oberweis in an
Illinois district that voted 54 percent for George W. Bush in 2004.
Democrat Don Cazayoux edged out Republican Woody Jenkins in
Louisiana, picking up a seat formerly held by Republican Russell
Baker in a district Bush carried with 59 percent. The district that
elected Childers voted 62 percent for Bush.
Does any of this matter? In terms of the Republican brand’s
overall weakness, these special elections are just a drop in the
bucket. Abysmal candidate recruitment and even worse fundraising
are likely to make this fall’s congressional elections a GOP
bloodbath. Even so, those who say these three races aren’t terribly
representative have some solid arguments on their side.
Oberweis has run for office in Illinois before and lost. This
time out, he was criticized for running a lousy campaign. Maybe his
loss is a harbinger for Republicans nationally; maybe he was just a
bad candidate.
That argument is even stronger in Louisiana, where Jenkins is a
polarizing figure who has lost multiple elections and Cazayoux is a
pro-life, socially conservative Democrat. An independent may have
pulled moderate Republican votes away from Jenkins while the
district has undergone a demographic shift. Since Hurricane
Katrina, many black Democrats have moved to the area making it more
competitive politically. Quin Hillyer has explained how this development may actually help
Republicans win the seat back in November.
Finally, in Mississippi Childers ran as a pro-life, pro-gun,
conservative Democrat who would never vote for a tax increase.
Stuart Rothenberg and other political analysts have argued that this helped Childers win the quarter
of white conservative Democrats in the district who usually vote
Republican for federal offices. Rothenberg contends that
Republicans lost the “Bubba vote” by nominating a candidate from
the wrong part of the district and going too negative against
Childers.
ALL OF THESE objections to reading too much into the recent special
elections are valid. It isn’t entirely clear that these races were
a referendum on George W. Bush or that John McCain wouldn’t be able
to carry most of these districts in November. But these Democratic
gains should nevertheless worry Republicans.
First, look at the contrast between the parties. The Democrats
are nimbler, both keeping track and taking advantage of
opportunities in unlikely places. The Republicans are sclerotic and
reactive, failing to adapt to changing political circumstances.
Even the Republicans’ “bad candidate” defense is revealing: It is
always difficult to recruit good candidates in districts that are
difficult for your party to win — Democrats are doing better at
candidate recruitment even in places where GOP chances are fairly
good.
Then there is the problem of message: If Republican attacks
against candidates like Childers fall on deaf ears in conservative
districts, they are sure to flop in areas filled with centrist
swing voters. If the GOP can’t necessarily count on safe districts
or compete in marginal ones, electoral disaster looms.
In the 1990s, Republicans majorities were built on the
conservative South and GOP-friendly Great Plains and Rocky Mountain
states but the party even had a model for winning elections in
Democratic strongholds. Republicans held governorships in
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and California as well as
the mayoralties of New York City and Los Angeles. It wasn’t a model
that could work nationally — pro-choice, pro-gun control social
liberals would have fractured the GOP coalition — but voters
picking Bill Clinton for president nevertheless voted for
Republicans like Bill Weld, Pete Wilson, and Rudy Giuliani.
Now it is the Democrats who have a strategy of winning in
conservative areas. True, they can’t run candidate like Childers,
Cazayoux or even Bob Casey nationally. McCain still has the
advantage over Barack Obama places like Mississippi’s First
District. But that doesn’t mean they can’t use such districts to
pad their congressional majorities.
In short, the Democrats are acting like a party on the way to
majority status. Republicans are looking like their congressional
numbers are about to be reduced to pre-1994 levels in both
chambers. Tom Davis is right: Extenuating circumstances aside, the
recent GOP losses are “canaries in a coal mine.”
