Due to Hurricane Gustav, two House race run-offs in Louisiana (districts 2 and 4) were delayed until this Saturday. The results were interesting:
- Second District: Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao upsets Democrat William Jefferson to become the first Vietnamese-American member of Congress. Jefferson, you'll recall, is the allegedly corrupt congressman found with $90,000 in a freezer in his home. I don't know much about Cao but Congress will have much more integrity with Jefferson's absence; it's simply an embarrassment for his party that no one was able to take him out in the primary (which was an admittedly crowded field of 7 candidates, but, seriously!). And, as Eve Fairbanks sagely points out, Cao has his work cut for him: His overwhelmingly Democratic district supported Obama by 76 percent in November, and Cao will have a hard time maintaining his seat in 2010 if he plays a part in obstructing the president's agenda.
- Fourth District: Republican John Fleming edged out Paul Carmouche in an extremely tight race that followed the retirement of incumbent John McCrery this year. It's a Republican leaning district that Democrats thought they could make competitive -- and that they did, only losing by about 356 votes.
What does this mean for the future? Not very much. Despite what Republican operatives will be spinning -- and of course they ought to be, trying to eke a little juice out of the twin wins is only political best-practice -- the underlying balance of power between the two major parties remains the same. For my congressional elections wrap-up, DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff told me his wasn't worried about the few incumbents who did lose in 2008 because each loss had a narrative that was separate from the national political story. In this case, Jefferson was corrupt, and Carmouche was running in a Republican open-seat, plus the dynamics of special elections are unusual. The results put a little tarnish on the DCCC's impeccable recent record, but that's no reason for House Dems to panic. Incidentally, Democratic candidate Mary Jo Kilroy snatched a Republican seat in central Ohio yesterday after provisional ballots were finally tallied.
--Tim Fernholz
