California 50 looks promising for November!

Bilbray defeats Busby in Calif.-50
ELECTION RESULTS
By Aaron Blake

Republicans claimed victory in the California special election early Wednesday morning as former Rep. Brian Bilbray led Democrat Francine Busby by four points with 96 percent of precincts reporting.

The 50th District race Tuesday was a runoff pitting the top two finishers from an April election to replace disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R) and was billed as a bellwether for the upcoming general election in November, where Democrats hope they have the wind at their backs and a chance to retake Congress.

Snip...

Democrats cast Busby’s showing as an early sign things are going their way.

"After spending more than $5 million, using national Republican leaders like George Bush, John McCain and Laura Bush, dumping 250 Republican staffers into the state, and running hugely negative ads, Brian Bilbray and the NRCC were able to pull out less than 50 percent of the vote in a very solidly Republican district," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg said.

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/060706/bilbray.html

Election 2006
Republican Bilbray Wins Vulnerable House Seat
by Scott Horsley

Morning Edition, June 7, 2006 · Republican Brian Bilbray emerges victorious in the fight for the suburban San Diego House seat once held by jailed Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Bilbray narrowly beat Democrat Francine Busby, a local school board member, in a special election.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5456320

Snip...

Obviously, Democrats had hoped to pull an upset yesterday by winning in a solidly-Republican district. They fell a little short in the end. But for Republicans this morning, it's hard to spin the results as an encouraging sign of things to come.

It's very much reminiscent of Jean Schmidt narrowly defeating Paul Hackett is Ohio's 2nd last year -- a race that the GOP was supposed to win easily went down to the wire, and ended up costing Republicans a fortune. Put it this way: if the GOP has to work this hard just to keep ordinarily-safe Republican districts in November, they better raise more money than they've ever raised before.

As Stuart Rothenberg noted yesterday, before results were available, "The National Republican Congressional Committee is pouring resources into this race at an astonishing rate in hopes of saving the seat. But the NRCC will not be able to put $5 million into every contest this fall, so a Bilbray victory, if it happens, should not mislead observers into thinking that Democratic prospects in the fall have been exaggerated."

Ultimately, coming close isn't good enough, and it's Bilbray who's going to take the oath of office. But if this race was a bellwether election, Republicans can't be at all pleased with how this year is shaping up.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_06/008961.php

Post Election Thoughts

by Chris Bowers, Wed Jun 07, 2006 at 03:29:46 AM EST

Snip...

No matter what the media says, no Democrat should be mistaken about this result. First, this is a huge, seismic shift in our favor that bodes extremely well for November. If we receive an 18% shift nationwide, we will win the House easily. If Republican candidates are pulling only 20% of the independent vote, the Indycrat realignment is still on.

At the same time, this is not as good as we could have done. The situation for Republicans is so bad right now, that even our huge leads in the generic ballot hide what Paul Rosenberg pointed out: we should be doing better. Just because we are winning does not mean we are using winning strategies. Our ten-point advantage in the generic ballot should be fifteen. The eighteen point shift we saw in CA-50 should have been twenty-five. Bilbray will win with under 50% of the vote, and there was low turnout relative to past California primaries. Clearly, there was an opportunity for us to do more.

We had some real victories tonight, and we still have time to rectify our mistakes. Fortunately, come November, even Busby will have another chance. I just hope that as a party we realize that there are clearly better strategic paths for us to take than the ones we are currently following. Tonight, as David Sirota writes, Jon Tester showed us just such a path.

I won't pretend to have all of the answers at 3:30 am. Things are going pretty well, but they could be going even better. Thanks for staying up with me, but good night for now. Don't forget to help out BlogPac and netroots candidates.

I'll see you in the early afternoon.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/6/7/32946/22728

Despite the spin, CA-50 is a ruby red Republican district. Republicans have a 55,000-registered voter advantage over Democrats in the district. In 2004, CA-50 voted for President Bush with 55% of the vote, and re-elected Rep. Duke Cunningham with 58% of the vote. The closeness of this special election is a testament to Francine Busby’s candidacy and her message of change and new priorities.

http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/004839.html