This is how I understand the election, and there is an important lesson at the end, and not the ome most folks are taking from this.
Campbell won the election purely on his slick and well-funded (RNC) direct mail absetee ballot campaign. That is beyond dispute. He lost on election day.
His literature portrayed the race as being between him, a tough on illegal immigration border defender, VS a liberal open-borders pro-amnesty democrat.
The pitch was this: if you don't vote for me, a liberal pro-amnesty democrat will win.
He got these ballots and the literature out early, and it worked.
Gilchrist never had a chance to come back, or get his message out, no matter how many radio ads his campaign bought.
Because 30,000 Republicans had already voted ABSENTEE for Campbell,
THINKING THEY WERE VOTING FOR THE TOUGHest BORDER DEFENDER IN THE RACE.
One lesson to take from this is: over 2/3 of the voters voted for the candidate they THOUGHT was the toughest border defender in the race, at the time they cast their ballot.
I agree. The media was also very favorable for Campbell, consistently referring to him as a conservative, despite evidence to the contrary. The fact that Campbell pulled in the big RNC guns at the end (Cheney and Mehlman) says that he was at least a tad bit worried.
Please don't count me among that 2/3 - I am (hopefully not in the minority) who knows sealing the border is crazy-talk.
Are you saying the candidates could mail out absentee ballots? Doesn't the voter have to request them?