75% Democratic

OK, how big of a year is it for the Democrats? HOW bad has the GOP screwed it up? Mississippi has 4 congressmen and it just elected its THIRD (of 4) Democrat to congress! In this district (which is the whitest in MS, voting 62% for bush in 2004), they tried to 'tar' the democratic candidate by tying him to Obama and calling him a "liberal". If the go-to playbook doesn't work with Obama in Mississippi, then i cannot WAIT to see what happens in districts that aren't considered 'close'. I have to say, this may be the most important electoral indicator you will see all year.

Finally, time for the grown-ups to be back in charge.
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Notes (and MUCH thanks from Cotton Mouth):

2008 SPECIAL ELECTION RUNOFF
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 1ST DISTRICT
----------------------------------------------------
CHILDERS (D) 50,401 - 52%
DAVIS (R) 46,160 - 48%
(414of 462 precints reporting)

(notes)
1. Lee County at +800 childers, we got +1,600 last time, 8 precints of 42 left in Lee
2. 38/38 of Desoto is in now, Lee still 42/42, Prentiss 0/15
3. Childers in comparison to 4/22 picked up 500 in Chickasaw, 400 in Yalobusha
4. Union and Webster a wash
5. Lafayette +450, Panola +700 with one precint left
6. Childers wins Lee by 1,800 , a little more than last time
7. Counties left to report: Prentiss, Calhoun, Clay, Tate, Itawamba, Pontotoc
9. Picked up 200 in Alcorn
10. Desoto hits, now 38/38, we are gonna win this thing, yehaaaaw!!
11. Prentiss only 3/15 in
12. Per MSNBC AP calls race for Childers

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FYI, THAT is a badass breakdown of the race region by region. you will be NEVER see anything like that at 10pm if you aren't friends with a campaign. That's incredible. those guys are top notch.

UPDATE!
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more from Cotton Mouth:

entiss only 3/15 in 12. Per MSNBC AP calls race for Childers

MS-01: Resources for tonight Posted: 13 May 2008 06:16 PM CDT We will be posting results as they come in tonight, as are several other blogs. I am going to post links to a lot of cool stuff for MS-01 so that you can be prepared when the results start coming in. Phonebank for Childers MS-01 Resources: Mississippi Secratary of State's website has the official SOS returns for the April 22 election 2008 Race Tracker has district information Swing State Project has two very cool charts with the county by county results from the last go around. Live Blogging the Results: ( I will add more as I learn of them) Swing State Project Democratic Convention Watch Cotton Mouth Official Results: (will update with specific links as they come available) Daily Journal election results page District Map (Color Coded from April 22 results) Blue - Travis Childers Red - Greg Davis - Links to today's news articles on MS-01 TPM: All Eyes On Mississippi House Race Tonight - Commercial Dispatch: Voters don mud boots, head to polls - Daily Journal: Reaffirms endorsement - WSJ: A House Race Holds Clues for GOP

Greg Davis is trying to save us from scary liberals with liberal ideas Posted: 13 May 2008 01:16 AM CDT The Commercial Appeal's special election preview article came out early this morning. It was fairly standard but this one Greg Davis quote caught my eye. Davis told several hundred at the Civic Center rally, "Thanks for being here on the eve of the historic election. Voters have a choice. They can vote for my opponent's party that has the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and John Kerry, all liberals with liberal ideas..." You know, it is not like the last eight years of Republican rule have been a bed of roses there Greg. The man you brought in to campaign for you today is a principal architect of the failed policies of the current administration. I don't think people are too scared about Pelosi or Obama, they just don't want him or any his cronies anywhere near Washington. Today the GOP will learn a painful lesson. The days of the politics of fear and division are drawing to a thankful close in Mississippi.

WaPo's The Fix - Chris Cillizza's Political Blog on recent polling in MS-01 Posted: 12 May 2008 10:54 PM CDT The Fix, a political blog by Chris Cillizza from the Washington Post, featured this little nugget of information on recent polling. There is even a short video of Chris on the MS-01 race. Despite the onslaught of spending, knowledgeable sources on both sides of the aisle insist little has changed in the last 21 days. Childers is believed to have a mid single digit lead over Davis with Republican strategists turning pessimistic about their chances in the last 48 hours or so. If you are in north Mississippi, please go vote tomorrow and take someone with you, unless they are voting for Davis of course. The Republican strategy appears to be to bring in all their guns to get their vote out, and make the race so ugly that it repels a large turnout. Don't be complacent or fooled, go vote! UPDATE: The NRCC has fired $4000 a day for a daily tracking poll for the last two weeks, including today. Our friend Mitch at the Thorn Papers has been talking to little Republican birdies about said polls. A little bird just informed me that the Republicans' own internal polls are showing Childers up five.

Governor William Winter on Davis campaign: "I am appalled..." Posted: 12 May 2008 10:08 PM CDT Just released by the New York Times is another article surveying the effect of recent Davis campaign attempts to bring down Travis Childers by linking him to presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama. Many Mississippians see this as what it is, race baiting at is finest. Former Governor and hero of Mississippi politics, who gave us the monumental Education Reform Act of 1982, had this to say, “I am appalled that this blatant appeal to racial prejudice is still being employed,” said Mr. Winter, who lost the 1967 governor’s race after his segregationist opponent circulated handbills showing blacks listening to one of his speeches. Mr. Winter went on to win the governor’s office 12 years later. “I had thought we had gotten past that,” Mr. Winter said. “That was a tactic that was used against me in the 1960s.” Professors at Ole Miss noticed the blatant use of race by the Davis campaign as well. The chairman of the University of Mississippi’s department of public policy leadership, Robert J. Haws, said he had also noted the use of race in the contest. “Does this reflect a certain level of desperation?” he asked. Dr. Haws also said he had detected a “real reaction from people I know, Republicans” against the ads. What does Travis Childers think of these controversial tactics? Mr. Childers, 50, a court official in the district’s rural section, said voters believed that the effort to link him to Mr. Obama was about race. “When I’ve been out in the district, people tell me, ‘They’re trying to play the race card,’ ” he said. The Childers campaign is counting on that reaction, as well as an increased black turnout, focusing pre-election efforts on rallying African-American voters scattered through the small towns of the district’s 24 mostly rural counties. Mr. Davis, on the other hand, is counting on Mr. Cheney to help rally his base in DeSoto County, which has about 20 percent of the district’s population, abuts Memphis and is the fastest-growing in Mississippi.