Posted on 04/23/2008 5:29:43 AM PDT by Impy
Democrat Travis W. Childers led the field and just narrowly missed the majority vote he needed for an outright victory in a special election held Tuesday in Mississippi’s 1st District. Childers now moves on to a May 13 runoff with Republican Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, in a district that has a conservative lean and usually votes strongly Republican in contests for federal office.
Childers received 49.4 percent, just short of the 50 percent threshold, according to complete but unofficial returns. Davis received 46.3 percent of the vote and trailed Childers by more than 2,000 votes, staving off elimination only by running up a margin of more than 8,000 votes in his home base of DeSoto County. Four other candidates were on the ballot, on which party affiliations were not listed, and they combined to total the remaining 4.3 percent of the vote.
Childers now faces a three-week runoff campaign with an uncertain outcome. But his first-place finish marks the latest startling surprise for the Democratic Party, and the latest setback for a national Republican Party that has struggled to regain its footing since its losses in the 2006 congressional elections overturned its majorities in both the House and the Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at cqpolitics.com ...
That is often a serious issue. In this district, you have rural interests not wanting to be overwhelmed by the Memphis suburban interests. Across the border in TN, we have a similar problem in the ludicrously gerrymandered GOP 7th, which stretches from the East Memphis suburbs all the way to the wealthiest precincts in Nashville (designed to corral all Republicans for that 200+ mile stretch in one seat and keep them out of the surrounding 9th, 8th, 6th and 5th districts). The Rep. is from the Nashville suburbs and Memphis is angry that they’re not represented, and so Blackburn is getting a primary challenger that is essentially running bacause of that (we’re not likely to lose the seat, even if it gets brutal, but it does deplete us of funds we could be using for other seats).
People who foul up one area so bad they have to flee it ALWAYS continue the same behavior when they reach their new pristine area. This process is called Californification...
So, you think we will lose this seat?
That’s part of the problem with how congress acts and people view it. They aren’t running for Mayor, they should be concerned with the national interest not farm pork versus urban pork.
Hopefully they’ll circle the wagons and pull it out. It would be supremely embarrassing to lose it.
Oprah’s Obama poised to take MS next? He already has in the primary.
Haley proved here that he was not a good prognosticator. The Wicker seat is too precarious to play with. He should have named someone else to the Senate seat.
Not gonna happen. Snobama makes McGovern look like Ross Barnett.
Still if Wicker had stayed put, this problem would not be there.
I am concerned too about Baton Rouge on May 3. Baton Rouge is full of liberals, many have moved there because of Katrina.
Wicker wasn’t going to stay put forever. The Baton Rouge district is more Dem than the MS seat is. Hopefully sanity will reign in both.
If the Republicans ever get control of redistricting, they could cut the Memphis suburbs out of the 7th and put in the 8th. There are some Memphis suburbs in there already, and it’d help make the 8th more winnable for us (only a six-point Bush district in 2004, it certainly could be made more so).
With the exception of the 1st, 2nd (and probably the 9th), the districts in TN are ridiculous. Even in a bad GOP year, we still vote for a majority of GOP candidates in legislative and federal races, but continue to get a minority of seats.
The 7th as it exists needs to be unpacked and has no business being anywhere west of the Tennessee River. The 8th should occupy everything west of the TN river and include the Memphis suburbs and Republican-leaning Jackson (John Tanner has NEVER faced a credible opponent in his 20 years and if his “new” district included all of that, he might choose to retire). I am at a loss to find an image of the lines that were pre-1970s for the federal districts, but they made a lot more sense. Under fair lines, we should have a 7-to-2 GOP majority (with only the 5th and 9th being Dem).
I live in Desoto county and voted against Childers, not for Davis. Davis used taxpayer money too ‘liberally’ for me. Childers’ ads against Davis’ suspect spending have been effective.
I just thought of something last night. Would it be possible to break up Nashville into two or three GOP-leaning districts? I imagine it would tick off some Nashville pols royally, but the 5th district did give Bush 48% of the vote in 04, and hey, it wouldn’t be that bad of a gerrymander compared to the existing 7th. Plus, I don’t think Nashville has a sufficient black population to trigger a Voting Rights Act violation.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It might be possible to break up my 5th district (I’d love to have a GOP Rep., this district hasn’t elected one since Ulysses Grant won his 2nd term in 1872), but I’d be worried that might have the effect of putting the surrounding districts at risk and make them all competitive for the Dems. Getting greedy in an attempt to get an 8-1 GOP/Dem delegation (which could result in a 6 Dem/3 GOP in a bad GOP year with no Republicans west of Chattanooga’s 3rd) is not as preferable to packing the Dems tightly into Nashville and Memphis, getting a guaranteed 7-2 GOP/Dem delegation for the forseeable future.
You can see what happened when we tried that in PA when the GOP legislature drew the delegation to be 13 GOP/6 Dem (with 2 Dem seats potentially competitive, so 15 GOP/4 Dem if we were really lucked out in dumping the incumbents in the Kanjorski and (then) Hoeffel seats). Once in place for 2002, it resulted in 12 GOP/7 Dem when 1 Dem gerrymandered out of his seat challenged a “safe” Republican and beat him (Holden vs. Gekas) and after the fiasco election of ‘06, the Dems instead grabbed a 11 Dem/8 GOP majority taking out 4 of ours in one shot. Big “oops !”
no...Desoto county goes overwhelmingly for Davis.....it’s the rest of the district that’s acting a fool.
no...Desoto county goes overwhelmingly for Davis.....it’s the rest of the district that’s acting a fool.
no, you are right - it’s republican type voters fleeing memphis and Desoto county is overwhelmingly Republican. It’s the damn fools in the eastern end of the district who resent the fact that Tupelo isn’t the center of the 1st district anymore that’s screwing it up.
Damn morons voting for a flippin’ chancery clerk...
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