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The New York Times
Politics
Democrat Wins House
Seat in Mississippi
By ADAM NOSSITER,
nytimes.com on the Web, May 14, 2008
COFFEEVILLE, Miss. — Democrats
scored a remarkable upset victory on Tuesday in a special Congressional election
in this conservative Southern district, sending a clear signal of national
problems ahead for Republicans in the fall.
The Democrat, Travis Childers, a local courthouse official, pulled together a
coalition of blacks, who turned out heavily, and old-line “yellow dog”
Democrats, to beat his Republican opponent, Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven,
a Memphis suburb. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, the vote was
54 percent for Mr. Childers to 46 percent for Mr. Davis.
The seat had been in Republican hands since 1995, and the district, largely
rural and stretching across the northern top of Mississippi, had been considered
one of the safest in the country for President Bush’s party, as he won here with
62 percent of the vote in 2004.
Having lost a similar Congressional race this month in Louisiana, Republicans
had worked desperately to win this contest, sending Vice President Dick Cheney
to campaign for Mr. Davis, along with Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and
former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas; President Bush and Senator John McCain
recorded telephone messages that were sent to voters throughout the district.
Merle Black, a Southern politics expert at Emory University, called a Democratic
victory potentially “a huge upset, and an indication of a terrible year ahead
for the Republicans.” He added, “In theory, this should be an easy win for
them.”
Mimicking a strategy that proved successful in 2006, Democrats ran staunch
conservatives in both this and the Louisiana race, forcing their Republican
opponents to attack national party figures as surrogates.
Mr. Davis had been hoping for a large turnout in his home of DeSoto County,
where roughly 15 percent of the district’s voters live, and which is solidly
Republican and mostly white. But a last-minute appearance for him by Mr.
Cheney on Monday apparently failed to rally his base sufficiently; indeed a
modest room at a local convention center was hardly packed.
“There are indications that the normal Republican turnout is just not there,”
Mr. Black said. “If they can’t win up there, where are you going to win?”
Both Mississippi candidates depicted themselves as down-the-line conservatives
on social issues, and there was little difference between them on abortion and
gun rights: staunchly against the first, and for the second.
But the Republican strategy of trying to link Mr. Childers to more liberal
national Democratic figures fell short, as it did in Louisiana. Indeed,
voters here were bombarded by advertisements equating Mr. Childers with Senator
Barack Obama, a tactic intended to turn conservative whites away from Mr.
Childers and which some politicians said played on white racial resentments.
Mr. Childers, for his part, fiercely resisted the connection, calling himself
over and over a “Mississippi Democrat.”
The defeat is certain to put a damper on plans by Congressional Republican plans
to roll out their new policy agenda this week in an effort to turn around their
fortunes.
Several House Republicans, who were already scheduled to meet on Wednesday, have
said privately they do not see a wholesale leadership shake-up or an overhaul of
their campaign operation as a strong option, given that the election is just six
months away. But they are likely to consider some changes in response to
the Mississippi defeat. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich warned last week that
Republicans need a major shift to forestall heavy losses in November.
When Mr. Childers is sworn in, the House will have 236 Democrats to 199
Republicans. The seat was vacated when Representative Roger Wicker, a
Republican, was appointed to succeed former Senator Trent Lott.
In the end, tying the white Democrat to the black presidential candidate may
have helped Mr. Childers more than it hurt him, as campaign aides reported heavy
black turnout, heavier than in a vote three weeks ago when he came within 400
votes of winning.
“I like what Childers was saying: he was more truthful and down to earth,”
said Mary Shelton, an African-American who had just voted for him at the
Yalobusha County courthouse here.
And Mr. Childers’s association with the party that might nominate Mr. Obama
didn’t hurt either. “We need a change, we really do,” Ms. Shelton said.
Mr. Childers won Yalobusha, having lost it in the April vote.
And even in this district, it is not difficult to find conservative voters
dissatisfied with the administration in Washington. “There’s a lot of
people that are mad at Bush,” said Jim Jennings, a retired businessman, sitting
at a table with Republican voters at a barbecue restaurant in DeSoto County.
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican
Congressional Committee, said the party was disappointed and needed to be better
prepared to deal with conservative Democratic candidates, but he warned that
time is short.
“Voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican
Party in general,” Mr. Cole said. “Republicans must undertake bold efforts
to define a forward-looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change
voters are looking for.”
Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.
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