Dems win in ‘red’ Louisiana district, expand congressional majority

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In March, the first big contest of 2008 was a special election in Illinois' 14th district. Republicans felt good about their chances — the district had been represented by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert ®, Bush won the district twice by double digits, and Republicans have held the seat for decades. But when voters headed to the polls, a Democrat won by six points.

Yesterday, the second big contest of 2008 was a special election in Louisiana's 6th, and once again, the GOP went into the race optimistic. Bush won the seat by 19 points in '04, and Republicans have dominated the district for decades.

And now it's represented by a Democrat.

A Democrat won a special congressional election here Saturday, bolstering his party's majority status on Capitol Hill by taking a seat Republicans have held since 1974.

Don Cazayoux, a lawyer and state lawmaker, beat Republican Woody Jenkins to cap a race that Democrats viewed as a chance to further tighten control over Congress. The seat opened when Republican Richard Baker, a 20-year incumbent, resigned to take a lobbying job.

With all precincts reporting, Cazayoux had 49 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Jenkins, a community newspaper publisher. Three independents combined to take 5 percent. The congressional district includes Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes.

Republicans, predictably, downplayed their latest embarrassing defeat, but let's not forget that the NRCC and right-wing groups like Freedom's Watch combined to pour nearly $1 million into the race, and most of the ads sought to tie Cazayoux to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.

"For the second time this cycle, Republicans were reminded that 'all politics is local,'" DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen said in a statement. "House Republicans tried to nationalize this election, illegally coordinated with Freedom's Watch, used false and deceptive special interest smears, and funneled nearly a million dollars into a district that Republicans held for more than three decades. Don won by focusing on the concerns of LA-06 voters — good paying jobs, affordable health care, and better education."

If yesterday didn't make Republicans nervous, they're not paying attention.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/

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Here's what a front page blogger on mydd had to say about it:

* There is no overstating it: This was a huge win for the Democrats. This was a district that had been in Republican hands for decades, one that tends to lean about 7 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections (or at least did before Hurricane Katrina). In short, this was a district that the Republicans should have been able to win but simply couldn't.

* If the Republicans can't win here, where are they going to be able to win in November? Seriously. If Democrats are winning districts that are this red -- they now in fact hold seven districts with a similar lead to the Republicans' 6 -- and are competitive in even redder districts like Mississippi's first, which leans 10 points more Republican than the nation as a whole, the Democrats' advantage in House elections nationwide might actually be larger than previously expected by some.

* Don Cazayoux will be a better Congressman than Woody Jenkins, or the previous incumbent Richard Baker. Yes Cazayoux will be on the right end of the Democratic caucus in the House. Nevertheless, he will undoubtedly be more progressive than either the Republican he was running against or the Republican he is replacing. As such, if you want to help keep him in Congress past January, head over to Act Blue to contribute to his reelection campaign today.

* The attacks linking Cazayoux to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama didn't work. They simply didn't. Yes, the Republicans pulled in more votes and a greater share of the vote than they did last month in the first round of balloting. So what. This is a very Republican district and yet despite of this lean and the fact that the GOP tried to make this election about Jeremiah Wright, they still lost.

* This race was very much put forward by the chattering class as a referendum on Obama's coattails (which proved to be strong in the very Republican-leaning Illinois 14th congressional district earlier this year), and Obama's coattails passed the challenge. Simply put, the Republicans may have thought they had found a silver bullet in Obama and Wright (and Pelosi, too, for that matter), but they didn't.

If Obama has positive coattails (or at least doesn't have negative ones) when he is mercilessly attacked in the paid media in a district (as well as the national establishment media) and yet the Democrat tied to him nevertheless pulls an upset and wins in a Republican-leaning district even without Obama even attempting to defend himself there, doesn't that kind of undercut the notion that Obama is unelectable? That he doesn't have coattails? ...?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/5/3/234258/9159