How will the Democratic wave affect N.M. races?

Democrat Travis Childers’ Tuesday victory in a special election in a conservative Mississippi U.S. House district has Washington Republicans reeling and pundits considering the possibility that other GOP seats – even New Mexico’s right-leaning 2nd Congressional District – are more vulnerable than previously thought.

It was the third time this year that a Democrat won a special election for a U.S. House seat in a district that historically favors Republicans. The others were in Illinois and Louisiana. U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., wrote in a memo to colleagues that the losses are “canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate.”

“The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006,” Davis wrote, according to the New York Times.

House Republicans lost 30 seats, and came within a couple of percentage points of losing another 15, in 2006. An article in The Politico highlights the thinking among some Republicans that they could easily lose another 20 seats in the House this year to the Democratic wave that is sweeping the nation. Davis, in his memo, said President Bush is a problem for Republicans.

Two New Mexico House seats – the south’s 2nd District and the Albuquerque-area 1st District – are currently held by Republicans but are being defended by the GOP without the benefit of incumbency this year. The same is true of New Mexico’s open Senate seat.

Jon Blair, spokesman for the campaign of Democratic 1st District candidate Martin Heinrich, said the Democratic victories in the House races “show that the American people are tired of the failed policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney.” He pointed out that the frontrunner for the Republican 1st District nomination, Darren White, was Bush’s 2004 campaign chair in Mew Mexico and said, “on all issues that matter, he toes the Bush/Cheney line.”

“Just as it was in Louisiana, Illinois and Mississippi, it’s clear to New Mexicans that a vote for the Republican candidate is a vote for endless war in Iraq and George Bush’s failed economic policies that have left middle-class families behind,” Blair said.

White’s campaign manager, Sara Lister, disagreed.

“The voters in our congressional district understand that Darren White is his own man and not beholden to any political party,” she said. “Darren has a proven record of being an independent voice who is unafraid to shake things up to get results. That’s why he won re-election as sheriff with 63 percent of the vote in Bernalillo County in 2006 during an exceptionally bad year for Republicans.”

In the conservative 2nd District

As noted in The Politico’s article and another from the Washington Post blog The Fix, even New Mexico’s 2nd District, normally a GOP stronghold, might be in play if the special House elections are any indication. The Fix notes that the Mississippi district – which Childers won by eight points – is as much a Republican stronghold as are the southern New Mexico House district and several others across the nation.

“Democrats may have a much broader field of targets this fall than we previously thought,” The Fix wrote.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the fundraising arm of House Democrats, has already listed New Mexico’s 2nd and 1st districts as targets this year. The moderate 1st District is usually on the group’s target list, but the 2nd District is much more conservative and is not a race that automatically earns national attention.

Christopher Maloney, spokesman for Republican 2nd District candidate Ed Tinsley, highlighted a tactic that proved disastrous for the GOP in Mississippi: trying to tie Childers to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“Republican congressional campaigns which seek to solely demonize their opponents by tying them to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or a national liberal Democrat agenda will find a similar fate as the previous campaigns we’ve witnessed this cycle,” Maloney said. “The same holds true for Democrats who wish to link their opponents to President George W. Bush or John McCain.”

That, Maloney said, is because politics is local. He said the issues in the 2nd District are “distinctly different” from those in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois.

Republican 2nd District candidate C. Earl Greer said he has criticized congressional Republicans for “losing their way and having steered away from Republican values.”

“That’s why they lost the majority in 2006, and I still think you’re seeing some of that,” he said of the three special-election losses. “I’m pretty convinced that after I win the primary I’m going to win the general because I’m bringing those values back, or I’m not straying away from those values.”

Democratic 2nd District candidate Bill McCamley said the Democrats’ victories this year show that “Democrats can win in districts that people have long called ‘Republican.’”

“It shows that people all across the country are fed up and looking for change,” he said. “They want someone who will stand up for regular people.”

McCamley said he’s especially excited about the result in Mississippi because the media firm that worked for Childers, Fletcher, Rowley, Chao, Riddle, is also working for his campaign.

In the Senate race

Because the three seats Democrats have picked up in special elections were in the House, much of the talk about the fallout from the Democratic victories has focused on that arm of Congress. House Republicans are also vulnerable this year because the DCCC has a huge fundraising advantage over the National Republican Congressional Committee, the fundraising arm of House Republicans.

But New Mexico’s Senate race is also a concern in the context of the Democratic House victories, said Whitney Cheshire, spokeswoman for GOP Senate candidate Heather Wilson. In that primary race, Wilson has highlighted her moderate – or as she calls it, “commonsense conservative” – record in arguing that she’s more electable than her ideologue opponent Steve Pearce.

“Republican losses in Illinois, Louisiana and now Mississippi clearly show that we need to nominate Republicans who can win in the general election,” Cheshire said. “This year, there will be no room for flubs and flaws for Republicans, even in normally safe districts. Electability will continue to be one of the biggest issues in this Senate primary. That’s why we need to elect a commonsense conservative like Heather Wilson.”

Marissa Padilla, spokeswoman for Democratic Senate candidate Tom Udall, said voters are clearly looking for change.

“They want leaders who will focus on doing the right thing and are willing to work across the aisle to get results,” Padilla said. “They want leaders who will stand up to the special interests and reject the partisanship and failed policies of the Bush era.”

As I’ve disclosed in the past, I’m friends with McCamley. Click here to read more about that.