How much trouble are Republicans in for this Fall? Maybe not as bad as some have feared. In the special election to fill disgraced Republican Congressman Randy Cunningham’s seat the Democrat came in with only 8 percent more votes than in the general election in 2004. That means that the election will go to a runoff in June. Writes political scientist Jay Cost:
The Democrats had everything going for them in this election. They had a corrupt felon-incumbent, they had low turnout, they had a well-financed challenger, and they had a divided Republican field. They had a district that has, in the last 10 years, skewed Republican less and less. And they only managed to get about 8% more of the vote when they needed 14% more. In 2004, Busby pulled in 36%. This time around she won 43.9%.
Cost gets specific:
There is no other way to understand this but as a loss for the Democrats.
That is because CA 50, as Cost has written before, is the “type of seat the Democrats need to capture to take the House” in November. It is Republican but has been trending slowly Democrat over the last few years. Therefore Cost predicts:
no win in CA 50, no Democratic takeover. I still hold that position.
Meanwhile Tom DeLay has decided not to run in Texas and Bush’s numbers appear to have hit the floor.
The question is: how will the immigration issue play in November?
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