Even in a post-Scott Brown world, a special election can still be a foregone conclusion. By an overwhelming majority, voters in Rep. Robert Wexler’s old district in Florida chose Democrat Ted Deutch to replace him last night.
Deutch, a state Senator, beat Republican opponent Republican Ed Lynch by a margin of 62-35. Unaffiliated candidate Jim McCormick came got just 2.7% of the vote.
The result was no surprise in the Democratic-leaning 19th District in Florida. Obama won the Palm Beach area district with 65% of the vote in 2008, and Wexler enjoyed strong support during his more than a decade in office.
The seat opened up when Wexler resigned last October after holding the seat since 1997. Wexler quit Congress to take a job as director of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, a think tank in Washington.
After his victory in the special election last night, Deutch will serve out the remaining 9 months in Wexler’s term before facing the voters again in November should he choose to run for reelection.
As the first general election of the 2010 cycle, political observers did their best to read the tea leaves from last night’s expected result in FL-19.
Politico‘s Morning Score reported Deutch’s “victory margin may help quiet some Democratic concerns, in the near term, about their party’s standing with seniors and Jewish voters.”
Meanwhile, House Race Hotline Editor Tim Sahd told the Palm Beach Post that Democrats shouldn’t read too deeply into the result.
“A closer race would’ve added to Democratic paranoia about their chances this fall,” he told the paper. “But the fact that Deutch performed close to the average for a Democrat in the district does not lessen the fact that nationally, GOPers are still likely to enjoy big gains in the general election.”
