PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Parked beside the Steve Southerland
campaign headquarters on Baldwin Road is a big RV with an orange
sign on the side designating it the “I’ve Had Enough Express.” And
indeed, if polls can be trusted, voters in Florida’s 2nd District
have finally had enough of seven-term Democrat Rep. Allen Boyd.
“We’re feeling very good about how things are going,” said
Southerland campaign communications director Matt McCullough, as he
sat in an office inside the yellow brick house that was once the
home of the GOP candidate’s grandfather. Polls showing Southerland
with a double-digit lead over Boyd, but the campaign is “not taking
anything for granted,” McCullough said. “We’re still out there
working as hard as we did from Day One.”
Despite such necessary cautions against overconfidence,
Republicans here clearly expect to be celebrating a Southerland
victory Tuesday night at the Boardwalk Beach Resort. If they want
to learn whether their party wins a majority in the House of
Representatives, however, they’d better be prepared to stay up past
midnight.
Gallup,
Rasmussen and other pollsters are now reporting “generic
ballot” numbers at historic highs for the GOP, but many of the most
hotly contested House races Tuesday are likely to be decided by
narrow margins. No matter how great the advantage for Republicans
nationwide, all politics is local and congressional elections are
not generic. Each House district has its own candidates, its own
demographics, its own controversies and, especially in highly
competitive campaigns, its own attack ads.
Consider Florida’s 22nd District near Palm Beach. It was
held by Republican Rep. Clay Shaw until 2006, when Shaw was
narrowly defeated by Democrat lawyer Ron Klein. Two years ago,
Allen West lost an underfunded challenge to Klein (see “Colonel
of Truth,” TAS, June 20, 2008) but this year, West has
become a GOP superstar, raising
more than $5 million for his rematch with Klein. The Democrat
incumbent has answered the challenge by spending nearly $5 million
of his own, augmented by even more spending from the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee. Much of that money has gone for
TV attack ads depicting West as a shady extremist. A week ago, the
DCCC unleashed a new ad that accused West, an avid
motorcyclist, of associating with the Outlaws gang. “Drugs.
Prostitution. Murder — that’s who Allen West rides with,” the ad
says.
Before that latest attack hit the airwaves, polls had
shown West leading Klein, and the Republican is still favored to
win, but it’s probably going to be very close. And the closer the
outcome, the more likely that the vote count will continue late
into the night before TV networks feel safe declaring a
winner.
Similar situations exist in dozens of other competitive
districts across the country, so that however unpopular the
Democrat incumbent may be, the Republican challenger is fighting a
headwind of attack ads. In many of those districts, the final
margin will be a matter of one or two percentage points — perhaps
just a few hundred votes — and it is unlikely a winner will be
declared before midnight.
Here in the 2nd District that encompasses Florida’s
western Panhandle, Southerland’s supporters hope to start the party
earlier — although half the district is in the Central time zone,
where the polls close an hour later than in the rest of the
state.
“We have consistently been ahead by double digits,” says
McCullough, the communications director for the Republican’s
campaign. “There are a lot of voters who are angry with Allen Boyd
and we think he’s going to be held accountable…. [Boyd] voted for
the health-care government takeover, he voted for the stimulus
giveaway, he voted for the bank bailout, he voted for
cap-and-trade… He’s voted 96 percent of the time with Nancy Pelosi.
He’s no moderate.”
Confident as they are in their own success, Southerland’s
supporters here hope to celebrate a big win for Republicans across
the country. So after voting today, they’d be well advised to take
a nap before heading to their Election Night party, because it’s
going to be a late night. Whatever the polls say, it’s still too
close to call.
