Democratic pickup in MS-01

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I hope all Democrats on this forum have gained a new respect for Mississippi, and will stop including it as one of the 5 (or even 10) most Republican states.

A little bit maybe if Childers isn't a right wing Democrat which are so common down south.

it is controlled in the statehouse by Democrats

...of which I am sure at least a strong plurality voted for Bush in 2004

Depends on how many are black. Probably not a plurality because of that, but a disturbingly large percentage.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Yup.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Wow, so Childers won those hardcore racist strongly for Hillary counties while the Republican won some Obama counties. Weird.

[MarkWarner08]

Tonight was the best Democratic performance in MS-01 since Jamie Whitten, who held this seat for over half a century, retired in 1994. This is truly remarkable...

[Sam Spade]

Wow, so Childers won those hardcore racist strongly for Hillary counties while the Republican won some Obama counties. Weird.

And do you know why?

[Verily]

Wow, so Childers won those hardcore racist strongly for Hillary counties while the Republican won some Obama counties. Weird.

Did you know that sometimes Republicans vote in general elections? Shocking, I know, but it does happen.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I hope all Democrats on this forum have gained a new respect for Mississippi, and will stop including it as one of the 5 (or even 10) most Republican states.

Republicans came close to winning a congressional seat in Massachusetts last year.  That does not make Massachusetts any less Democratic than it actually is.

[socaldem]

Good news.  I knew this district would be razor close.  Provided Childers pulls out in the end, this may actually be better for Democrats than an outright win for Childers would have been.

Of course, its not strange that Childers did best in the lilly-white ancestrally Democratic Hillary appalacian counties than he did in the counties where party identification and race coincide, leaving blacks and Democrats both in the minority.

That said, I would have expected Childers to have done a bit better in Lowndes, etc.  Perhaps black politicians (and Obama!) need to make sure that voters turn out...

As for redistricting, I don't think DeSoto county can be removed from the first district.  DeSoto can't, imo be lumped into district 2 without a voting rights issue.  And a "twister" gerrymander linking DeSoto to Rankin County would, though fun, be unwieldy.

Still, Democrats can easily shore up the district for Childers by cutting some counties in which he (and Democrats generally) have weakness in the Southwest and adding heavily Democratic counties in East-Central MS.   

I would begin by excising Choctow, Webster, Grenada, and Calhoun and Yalobusha counties.  I would replace them with Noxubee (71% Kerry!), Kemper, Oktibbeha, and Winston as necessary.  These changes improve overall Democratic performance while further marginalizing the DeSoto County regional base.

I would move the 2nd district into the far southwestern tip of the state (Adams, Wilkinson, Amite and Franklin counties), which should not change the district's overall black/white makeup.

Republican Attala, Montgomery, and Carroll counties can then be cut away from the 2nd, where they will be linked up with those counties that I withheld from the first district to form a monstrously GOP 3rd district.

That, indeed, will be a helpful and even tidy Democratic-leaning congressional map.

[socaldem]

Also, given that Kerry got over 49% in Pinola County, there is no reason Childers should not be winning there.  Obviously black turnout there is not what it could have been...

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Tonight was the best Democratic performance in MS-01 since Jamie Whitten, who held this seat for over half a century, retired in 1994. This is truly remarkable...

Seriously?  Sweet

[minionofmidas]

Yup.

This map is about as unsurprising as it could possibly be (except maybe Lowndes in the southeast corner).
I note it does not reflect media markets.

You people do realize that this district provided probably well over half of Kerry's white vote in Mississippi in 2004. The eastern counties voted for Bush, yes, but they're as lilywhite as it gets in Mississippi (so, not quite lilywhite), so the bulk of the 30 or 40 percent Democrat vote is coming from Whites. Kerry's white share of the vote in or near the black belt - and those counties in the western part of the district are very near the black belt - was probably less than Bush's share of the black vote. Small wonder few of these people switched this year either. And small wonder Obama won the primary in those western counties - most voters in the Dem primary were black.

[Brittain33]

I hope all Democrats on this forum have gained a new respect for Mississippi, and will stop including it as one of the 5 (or even 10) most Republican states.

I do have new respect for Mississippi... but what this shows is that in this environment, you can have competitive races in any state in the country, even the most conservative ones. That's a good sign--even if people voted Democratic for geographic reasons and not partisan or ideological reasons, at least they could look past party and ideology.

We are seeing flexibility in rural areas that were hard-core Republican (see OH-2) that we haven't and may never see in affluent southern suburbs.

I don't think this changes Mississippi's relative ranking at all, though.

[Brittain33]

Republicans came close to winning a congressional seat in Massachusetts last year.  That does not make Massachusetts any less Democratic than it actually is.

You know, it doesn't, but I think races like this, MA-05, OH-02, LA-06 are useful in districts on the outer edges of competitiveness on normal days to remind the party in power just can't throw up any candidate they like, however unacceptable, and count on winning because everyone knows it's a blue state or red state.

I think the Tsongas race reinforced that Massachusetts is a Democratic state but that the Democrats can't take a race in every district for granted if the candidate is weak enough or counting on a coronation. I think Republicans counted on coronations in LA-6 and MS-1 and have been surprised. I think there was a similar rash of surprises for Democrats in '93 and '94 when Clinton plucked people from supposedly safe seats to serve in his administration. It's healthy.

[Brittain33]

While we're talking about this, it's pretty remarkable for a congressman to be elected with only 33,000 votes. Voice of the people, this ain't. You don't see those numbers in general elections anywhere but those southern California districts where many of the people aren't citizens and many of the citizens don't have the time or interest to vote.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Well, mostly, I think the lesson here is that just about anything can happen in a special election, even in districts with a PVI as extreme as +/- 10.

And that Republicans and Democrats should not endeavor to just put up any candidate with the thought that they'll be assured of victory no matter what.  I mean, Oberweis and Jenkins most definitely do not reflect the best the GOP had to offer in either of those races, and that's showing at the ballot box.

While they're interesting to look at, these races don't tell us much about what will happen in 2008, when we'll likely have record high turnout at the polls (as opposed to painfully low turnout in some of these special elections).  Indeed, both the GOP and Democratic Party could be wasting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on seats that are just not able to be reliably held for the longterm.

[minionofmidas]

Well, mostly, I think the lesson here is that just about anything can happen in a special election, even in districts with a PVI as extreme as +/- 10.

And that Republicans and Democrats should not endeavor to just put up any candidate with the thought that they'll be assured of victory no matter what.  I mean, Oberweis and Jenkins most definitely do not reflect the best the GOP had to offer in either of those races, and that's showing at the ballot box.

While they're interesting to look at, these races don't tell us much about what will happen in 2008, when we'll likely have record high turnout at the polls (as opposed to painfully low turnout in some of these special elections).  Indeed, both the GOP and Democratic Party could be wasting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on seats that are just not able to be reliably held for the longterm.

I'm fairly confident in predicting a drop in the total vote cast in 2008 compared with 2004.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Well, mostly, I think the lesson here is that just about anything can happen in a special election, even in districts with a PVI as extreme as +/- 10.

And that Republicans and Democrats should not endeavor to just put up any candidate with the thought that they'll be assured of victory no matter what.  I mean, Oberweis and Jenkins most definitely do not reflect the best the GOP had to offer in either of those races, and that's showing at the ballot box.

While they're interesting to look at, these races don't tell us much about what will happen in 2008, when we'll likely have record high turnout at the polls (as opposed to painfully low turnout in some of these special elections).  Indeed, both the GOP and Democratic Party could be wasting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on seats that are just not able to be reliably held for the longterm.

I'm fairly confident in predicting a drop in the total vote cast in 2008 compared with 2004.

Really, why?  I disagree.

[minionofmidas]

Well, mostly, I think the lesson here is that just about anything can happen in a special election, even in districts with a PVI as extreme as +/- 10.

And that Republicans and Democrats should not endeavor to just put up any candidate with the thought that they'll be assured of victory no matter what.  I mean, Oberweis and Jenkins most definitely do not reflect the best the GOP had to offer in either of those races, and that's showing at the ballot box.

While they're interesting to look at, these races don't tell us much about what will happen in 2008, when we'll likely have record high turnout at the polls (as opposed to painfully low turnout in some of these special elections).  Indeed, both the GOP and Democratic Party could be wasting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on seats that are just not able to be reliably held for the longterm.

I'm fairly confident in predicting a drop in the total vote cast in 2008 compared with 2004.

Really, why?  I disagree.

Because 2004 had the highest turnout in decades for a reason - the highly polarizing nitwit that held the presidency, and the fact that !111!AMEHRICA!111! was under !111!ATAK!111! - and these conditions aren't prevailing. Republicans will have a tough time coaxing their 2004 first-time voters back to the polls, and not all the Dems' first-time voters (of which there were more, though not in all states) will show up either.

[HardRCafé]

I mean, Oberweis and Jenkins most definitely do not reflect the best the GOP had to offer in either of those races, and that's showing at the ballot box.

With the sorry state of the ILGOP, I am unsure they had better to offer.  I mean, who else was there besides Chris Lauzen?  Maybe they should try running homeless people.

[Torie]

The Pubbies are just getting their ass kicked, time after time. There is not reason to pretend Dorian Grey is Prince Charming, because he isn't.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

The Pubbies are just getting their ass kicked, time after time. There is not reason to pretend Dorian Grey is Prince Charming, because he isn't.

Every time it has been solely because we had a moronic candidate.  McCullough wouldn't have had a problem in MS-01.

[Brittain33]

Every time it has been solely because we had a moronic candidate.  McCullough wouldn't have
had a problem in MS-01.

If the national environment were different, we'd be talking about how Foster was an inexperienced egghead which is why he lost, how the old Dixiecrat populism is played out and our candidates didn't do enough outreach to Black voters so that's why Cazayoux lost, Childers just couldn't overcome the mountain of votes coming out of a southern suburb no matter how nice he is, etc. People find explanations that wouldn't be necessary if the outcomes were different.

I don't dispute that Oberweis was a crap candidate, but crap candidates win in good districts for them all the time. The race still ended up pretty close. Would anyone dispute that in the same race held in 2003, Oberweis would have won?

[HardRCafé]

In 2003, the ILGOP would have done anything possible to defeat Oberweis.

Which means he would have won.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I mean, Oberweis and Jenkins most definitely do not reflect the best the GOP had to offer in either of those races, and that's showing at the ballot box.

With the sorry state of the ILGOP, I am unsure they had better to offer.  I mean, who else was there besides Chris Lauzen?  Maybe they should try running homeless people.

Well, I cannot state such a thing as a fact, but a poor political organization is a surprising impediment to finding the best candidates to run.  During the NJGOP's heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, Republicans could find top-tier challengers even for the most hopelessly Democratic of seats.  Now, because the NJGOP has rotted to such a significant degree, the "best" the party has to offer don't even bother running in winnable open seats, just because running has been made just that much more difficult and distasteful.

("We'll help!" has since transitioned to "You're on your own.")

Same goes for the MassGOP—there are plenty of terrific possible candidates who pull the GOP lever in federal elections year after year, but would never seek higher office as a Republican.  (And, in some case, you get conservative Democrats-in-name-only running and winning a significant bloc of State House seats because of it.)

[© tweed]

Depends on how many are black. Probably not a plurality because of that, but a disturbingly large percentage.

I meant to say 'minority' rather than 'plurality.'  my apologies