Tomorrow and for a while now, Republicans and especially Democrats are going to be taking a very close look at what happened in the special election to replace the late Rep. Jack Murtha, where the Democrat Critz (a longtime aide to Murtha) beat the Republican Burns by a substantial though not overwhelming margin. We’ve had a lot of special elections over the last couple years but most have been in district’s heavily weighted toward one party or another. But this is a genuine swing district.
Though Murtha held it for like forever, it was the only district in the country that went for John Kerry in 2004 and John McCain in 2008. (Right? What’s that about?) So it’s a district that can go both ways.
Now there are a lot of caveats here. Critz ran away from the president on Health Care Reform and he was definitely not wedding himself to the national party. And since a Democrat had held it for more than a generation, you can’t say it’s a slamming victory for the Dems. But Dems are going to be happy right now with a lot less than slamming victories. But what it does show is that even a swing district, with a culturally conservative electorate, a Dem can win.
There are a lot people in Washington today who think any Dem who’s not in a really safe seat isn’t safe. And they may be right. But a lot of Dems are going to look at this and say, okay, this guy managed to do it. And Republicans will look at the same result and realize that even with the wave, the candidate still has to win it. It’s not automatic.
