Democratic State Rep. Michael Jackson, who lost the Democratic special-election primary in Louisiana's 6th District to now-Rep Don Cazayoux, says it's "very likely" that he'll challenge Cazayoux as an independent this year.

He's not planning on challenging in the Democratic primary. He is waging an independent, spoiler campaign against a Democratic incumbent.

This is not insignificant. Cazayoux won election by just three points over Republican Woody Jenkins in April. He did so largely based on heavy black turnout in East Baton Rouge. The district as a whole is 33% African-American, and it's very possible that Jackson, who is African-American himself, will peel off enough votes from Cazayoux to swing the election to Republican Bill Cassidy.

But then, Jackson appears not to be overly concerned about the good of the party:

Jackson, the vice chairman of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, said he’s fully aware that some Republicans want him in the race and that Democratic leaders want him on the sidelines.

"Both sides have shown an interest in whether or not I’m in this race," he said. "Republicans feel it might help their position and Democrats feel like it may hurt their position."

However, Jackson said, "my goal would be to run to win and to maximize the opportunity and to maximize my chances. and it appears that the best way to do that right now is to do it as an Independent."

So, he's running as an independent, then, because it maximizes his chances. It may hand the seat to a Republican, but what the hell...

But he added that although he would be on the ballot as an Independent, he intends to preach a Democratic message during his campaign.

"It’s not that I’m disassociating myself [from] the Democrats ... my banner will be an Independent-Democrat, I’ll stay connected to the philosophy that way."

An "Independent-Democrat", yet. Sounds familiar, for some reason.

Anyway, I should think that a vanity campaign as an independent, against a Democratic incumbent backed by the entire party establishment, with no obvious purpose other than to torpedo the Democrat, does enough on its own to "disassociate oneself from the Democrats".

If Jackson were running in the primary, that would be fine. If the jungle primary still existed, that too would be OK. But an independent run of this nature is truly bad form.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

It's been a while since my last House diary, and I just know you've been sitting there wondering "when will Nathaniel publish his next House roundup diary? I can't live without my fix, and he's just so...incisive...and brilliant...and downright Lincolnesque." (h/t to Stephen Colbert for that.)

Well, pine no more! As always, seats are ranked by flippability, but since House races are so numerous (at 435), I eventually switch to alphabetical order after the first 18 races. I figured 18 was a convenient number...and I also got lazy after writing about Alaska At Large.

Read below the fold, if you dare...

By all accounts, Don Cazayoux owes his seat in Congress to the fact that the Repubs picked the wrong candidate in the primary--nutburger ex-state rep Woody Jenkins.

Well, per a report from Baton Rouge's newspaper, The Advocate, Jenkins appears to be a glutton for punishment.

"I am close to making a decision, and that decision will probably be to run," Jenkins said in an e-mail Tuesday.

Jenkins said that since the May election, he has been contacted by hundreds of supporters, volunteers and contributors urging him to run again. He said his campaign team is still intact and ready for another race.

"Their feeling is that the results on May 3 were primarily the product of low voter turnout, and that a high turnout and the dynamics of the presidential election on Nov. 4 would lead to a different result," Jenkins said in his e-mail.

One problem--this isn't the same district that elected Repubs for 33 years.  And another problem--the national party wasn't exactly enthused about him (the NRCC reportedly refused to put in a dime unless he met certain financial benchmarks).

The Republicans have accepted that Obama will be the Democratic nominee for President, even if the Clintonistas have not.  They've used the last two special elections for House seats to test aggressive ad campaigns attacking the presumptive Democratic nominee.  The approach has primarily been guilt by association.  Including linking the local candidate to Rev. Jeremiah Wright via Obama.

The voters in these two hard-core Republican House seats have rejected that entire approach.  It could be that the association with Obama might even have helped the Democrats Don Cazayoux (LA-06) and Travis Childers (MS-01).  There's been a lot of fearmongering from the Clinton camp that Obama won't hold up in a general election where everyone is voting, and the Republican attack machine is up an running.  That Obama will not be an asset for down-ticket races.

These results (plus in IL-14, where Obama deployed volunteers to help Bill Foster's win) show that there is zero merit to that argument.  Check out some of the failed advertising below the fold.

Senate/Governor Races

NE-Sen: With just a week left until Scott Kleeb's primary, help him raise $20,000 by Friday! mcjoan wrote an excellent piece yesterday on the efforts of Kleeb's primary opponent, ex-Republican businessman Tony Raimondo, to buy this primary with his vast personal fortune. Let's show Raimondo what people power is capable of, and show Kleeb some love!

NC-Sen: Today is primary day in North Carolina, and aside from the presidential race, there are three major statewide races of interest; the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, and the Democratic and Republican primaries for Governor.

In the Senate race, State Senator Kay Hagan looks poised to deliver a convincing victory in her primary. Public Policy Polling shows her leading her closest challenger, Jim Neal, by 30 points, while SUSA shows her ahead by twenty-five.

Assuming she wins, she'll go into the general election as a clear underdog against incumbent Elizabeth Dole. Still, Hagan should be considered one of the strongest second-tier Senate challengers this cycle. Real Clear Politics has an interesting article about this race, comparing Hagan to Jim Webb:

But Hagan has raised an impressive $1.52 million, much of which she has spent on making the primary with Neal a blowout. And trailing by just seven points in public polls is on par with Webb and others from the 2006 cycle; a Democratic poll taken in late June, 2006, showed Webb trailing Allen by a 46%-39% margin, and a Mason-Dixon poll in late July had Allen leading by a whopping 16 points. And Hagan's campaign brags that only Missouri's Claire McCaskill and Ohio's Sherrod Brown have raised more money through the First Quarter of 2006.

As for the North Carolina gubernatorial primaries, Lieutenant Governor has a wide lead over State Treasurer Richard Moore in the Democratic primary, while Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (considered the strongest Republican general-election candidate) faces a tough challenge from State Sen. Fred Smith. I'm hoping that Smith manages to pull off the upset today.

IN-Gov: There's a primary tonight in Indiana, of course, and one of the hottest races here will be the Democratic primary for Governor of Indiana, where architect Jim Schellinger faces former Congresswoman Jill Long Thompson. The winner will get to take on unpopular GOP incumbent Mitch Daniels in what should be one of the closest gubernatorial races of the fall.

Polling has indicated a dead heat in the primary race, and that both candidates are competitive with Daniels. We'll see how things shake out tonight.

House Races

NY-13: Vito Fossella may face jail time for drunk driving, should he be found guilty. It's difficult to say how much of an effect this scandal will have on his chances for reelection. He had already been targeted by the DCCC, his district leans very slightly Democratic, and he has two challengers in the race; attorney Steve Harrison, who gave him his toughest challenge yet in 2006, and New York City Councilman Domenic Recchia, who currently has more cash-on-hand than the incumbent Fossella.

However, one major advantage for Fossella is geographic; his challengers both hail from Brooklyn, while Fossella-and the majority of NY-13 voters-live in Staten Island.

LA-06: The fallout from the Democratic pickup in LA-06 is looking pretty severe for the Republicans. The Hill notes serious infighting in the GOP caucus, following their second humiliating special-election loss in a row, with NRCC chairman Tom Cole lashing out at his Republican brethren:

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) chastised his colleagues Tuesday for not contributing to the GOP candidate in an increasingly crucial Mississippi special election, saying those who have not helped "ought to be ashamed of themselves," Republican sources said.

The harsh admonition from the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was the latest rallying cry from GOP campaigners, who have repeatedly cited a lack of enthusiasm and giving from members. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his colleagues earlier this year that they needed to get off their "dead asses" and raise money for the NRCC.

Boehner and Cole continued that theme Tuesday at a House GOP meeting, asking members to focus on the Mississippi race just days after the party suffered a second loss of the cycle in former Rep. Richard Baker’s (R) conservative Louisiana district.

There had been rumors that Cole would be relieved of his position if the GOP lost the special election in IL-14. Obviously, this has not occurred, but I doubt the GOP caucus is especially happy with Cole's stewardship of the NRCC, and he certainly doesn't seem happy with their contributions.

Cole's biggest mistake may have been to rely on demonizing high-profile national Democrats in this race; the traditional media is already pushing the narrative that that strategy has failed. From Roll Call:

Vulnerable House Democrats, touting their independence in their re-election efforts, might be breathing more easily this week after Republicans failed in their bid to make Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a political albatross.

In the first test-case for the strategy, the special election Louisiana’s 6th district, Democrat Don Cazayoux pulled out a win, making him the first Democrat to hold the seat in 32 years.

Donna Brazile agrees:

While Cazayoux was busy campaigning about helping those still struggling in Louisiana and bringing positive change to Washington, Republicans were trying to win by hook or by crook. National conservative groups, a veritable who’s who of Washington special interests, spent nearly a million dollars trying to brand Cazayoux as an Obama/ Clinton/Pelosi tax-and-spend liberal Democrat. The National Republican Congressional Committee and Freedom’s Watch even brazenly skirted federal campaign finance law by coordinating their attacks.

At the end of the day, they failed, making this race the second time this year that Republicans unsuccessfully tried to hold onto a conservative-leaning House seat by injecting national politics into the race.

Ultimately, the Republicans can scream all they want about Clinton, Obama and Pelosi. It won't disguise the fact that their candidates are bad and their ideas are bad.

CA-50: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has polled this race, and finds surprisingly strong numbers for Democrat Nick Leibham in his quest to unseat Republican Brian Bilbray, who won a relatively close special election in June 2006 against Dem Francine Busby. Bilbray leads Leibham 52% to 34%, but there are several reasons for optimism. Swing State Project's James L. notes:

That's about where you'd expect this race to be at this point.  But looking deeper into the numbers, Democrats have a 43%-39% generic congressional ballot preference advantage here, and a 47%-40% generic presidential advantage.  And after a positive bio is read of both Leibham and Bilbray, the gap closes to 49% Bilbray, 46% Leibham.

Bilbray's re-elects aren't stellar either, with only 42% of voters saying that they will vote to re-elect him, while 39% say that they'll cast their ballots for someone else.

MS-01: The DCCC keeps putting money into this race, with an additional expenditure of $100,000 now increasing the total spent to just shy of $1.4 million. That's insane for an R+10 district.

The Republicans are pulling out the big guns, sending Dick Cheney himself to campaign with Greg Davis. Frankly, I know this is solidly Republican territory, but even so, I'm not sure Cheney's going to help much. For more, check out Cotton Mouth Blog.

WV-02: Kossacks clammyc and thereisnospoon have conducted an exclusive interview with Democratic candidate Anne Barth, as part of an ongoing series of radio interviews with progressive candidates. Check it out!

Update: Check out Swing State Project's terrific list of Competitive House Race Rankings. Seriously, don't miss it.

Race tracker wiki: NE-Sen NC-Sen NC-Gov IN-Gov NY-13 LA-06 CA-50 MS-01

Congratulations to Congressman-elect Don Cazayoux, new Representative of Louisiana's 6th District, and to all who had a hand in his election. The Sixth District, which voted for Bush 55-43 in 2000 and 59-40 in 2004, will be represented by a Democrat for the first time since the Dixiecrat era.

This was a terrific win for the party, for a number of reasons. First, it is always exciting and inspiring to win an election in such strongly Republican territory. Only 15 Democratic Representatives out of 235 hail from more GOP-friendly districts than Louisiana's 6th, and taking another seat on such red turf is yet another indicator that Democrats are in the catbird seat heading into November. This is the second special-election victory in a former Republican stronghold within the span of three months, and it was nearly accompanied by another victory in the crimson First District of Mississippi (and may yet be, come the May 13 runoff).

We had no real business winning this district, but we managed to do so anyway, by running a candidate who was a good fit for the district, by wisely allocating national party resources to help that candidate compete, and by simply being lucky enough to face a genuine nutcase on the Republican side.

Needless to say, this is a major feather in the cap of the DCCC, and a terrific blow to our Republican counterparts. NRCC chairman Tom Cole must be losing his breakfast, especially on the heels of the loss in IL-14, and facing another possible loss in an even redder district (MS-01). On our side, the DCCC did a fine job; they fended off the combined forces of the NRCC, Freedom's Watch, and the Club for Growth, and came out on top.

The Club for Growth has been backing losing candidates for some time-they're far more interested, it seems, in having doctrinaire nutters on the Republican ticket than in actually winning a majority-but this is a particularly bad black eye for Freedom's Watch, a group which has already taken a lot of hits. Having targeted LA-06 as their first big experiment-apparently, backing Woody Jenkins was the first thing their leadership could agree on as a priority for this cycle-Freedom's Watch looks positively impotent. They were supposed to be the scary new kid on the block, the shadowy Republican hit squad doing all the GOP's dirty work this election cycle. But if they can't swing a special election in an R+6.5 district, they're going to have the devil's own time swinging the presidential election.

As reported, the GOP's strategy in this election was to tie Cazayoux to national Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. I should think that the results speak for themselves, and that they indicate that this strategy has failed. From the Wall Street Journal:

Don Cazayoux's victory against Woody Jenkins to represent Louisiana's Sixth District, a seat held by Republicans for decades, has further boosted Democrats' optimism heading in to the fall elections.

Not only were Democrats able to increase their majority in the House, but Mr. Cazayoux emerged the winner despite a multimillion-dollar national and local effort to nationalize the race by defining him as a liberal Democrat in lockstep with Mr. Obama.

At the very least, their efforts to demonize Cazayoux by linking him to Obama proved a double-edged sword. Although Woody Jenkins did outperform expectations in several areas of the district, and it's possible that that was due to the NRCC's attempts to link Cazayoux to Obama, it was certainly negated by increased black turnout in East Baton Rouge, which appears to have ultimately provided Cazayoux with his margin of victory. In other words, the GOP lost at least as much by alienating black voters as they may or may not have gained with these attacks.

DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen had a nice comment on these tired old Republican tactics:

"For the second time this cycle, Republicans were reminded that ‘all politics is local,’" said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen , the DCCC chairman. Saying that "House Republicans tried to nationalize this election," Van Hollen stated that the GOP "used false and deceptive special interest smears and funneled nearly a million dollars into a district that Republicans held for more than three decades."

Van Hollen claimed that Cazayoux "won by focusing on the concerns of LA-06 voters — good paying jobs, affordable health care, and better education."

Demonizing the national Democrats is in no way going to be enough to win them this election. They went hard after Obama and Pelosi, as they have gone after Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Howard Dean and John Kerry and Hillary Clinton in the past. And they have nothing to show for it, except a humiliating loss in a former Republican stronghold.

If running against national Dems in a district where Kerry got 40% of the vote in 2004 isn't enough to save their crappy candidates, it won't be enough to save them anywhere. The GOP had better come up with something new if they want to start turning things around.

Unfortunately, according to Minority Leader John Boehner, they are counting on us to do their jobs for them. Essentially, the GOP is relying on the Democratic presidential battle to drive voters away from the party; they know very well they're cooked in downballot races if it does not. Their last hope for this cycle is that they can use national Democrats to sink the local candidates on the ballot, and the LA-06 results are a strong indicator that that won't work very well.

One final irony from this election is that the GOP loss can, in a sense, be thrown at the feet of one of the party's rising stars, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. For it was Jindal who backed Republican Jim Tucker to serve as Speaker of the Louisiana House, a decision which essentially gave Tucker the speakership despite a 53-50 advantage for Democrats in the House.

The Democratic candidate whom Jindal passed over was Don Cazayoux. It is likely that if Jindal had selected Cazayoux to serve as speaker, he would not have elected to run for the U.S. House, and Republicans might well still hold this seat.

Be careful what you wish for, Governor Jindal.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

The confetti from last night's LA-6 election has not even been swept away and excuses for the Republican's most recent humiliation are already rolling out.  This morning, the Washington Psot's  Chris Cillizza is trotting out the GOP's argument for why they lost this seat and the IL-14, which they lost in March.

Sunday mornings are always a good time for a little levity. Bear witness, and smile a little bit, as you watch the good folks at the NRCC (the GOP House campaign committee) officially go bonkers:

This should come as a warning shot to Democrats," the NRCC said in a post-election press release. "The elitist behavior of the Democratic front-runner and the liberal and extremist positions that he and his fellow Democrats in Congress have staked their claim to, do not appear to be as salient as they once hoped."

Hat tip to CQ and TPMElectionCentral. Now, you know I did not make this up. I could not possibly create something THAT delusional.

Don Cazayoux's victory in Louisiana's 6th Congressional District should send a message to national Democrats that Louisiana is officially in play in this year's elections.

The DCCC spent significant dollars in the race and Cazayoux had decent fund-raising efforts on his own. As a result of those efforts — and a rising tide of disgust with the impact of national Republican policies and the Bush administration — a Democrat took this seat for the first time since the 1970s.

These developments and others point to the real possibility of Louisiana's nine electoral votes going into the Democratic column in this fall's election. But it's not all good news.

"Don" Cazayoux win in LA 06 shows that Obama will have coattail come November..  Hillary. McCain, Superdelegate and the GOP take note because a new Teflon candidate has been born. And this is why.....

In the run-up to Saturday's special election, the state representative's image popped up time and again in local television ads, paired with that of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

One spot had side-by-side photos of Cazayoux and Obama with the words "big government scheme" describing the local candidate's stance on health care. Another showed Cazayoux with Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and charged that Cazayoux supports a "radical liberal agenda." Another spot mocked him as "Don Tax You."

Tonight's results will get picked apart for analysis by lots of people in the coming days. But in short, it will become obvious that Cazayoux's margin of victory came from black votes -- you disrespect that community at your own peril. And second of all, Republicans once again failed, in a blood red district, to scare voters into submission by running scary ads against scaaaary national Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Voters, even in solidly conservative districts, are simply not that scared of Democrats anymore. It's Bush they're terrified of.

One last thought -- Democrats now have a 235-199 advantage in the U.S. House. They started the cycle 233-202.

If we can pull off the tight special election in MS-01 May 13, we will head into November with Republicans under 200 in the House.

p.s. It sucks to be Tom Cole.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

Louisiana special election results:

Sixth District

99% of Precincts Reporting

Don Cazayoux (D):          49% (49312)
Woody Jenkins (R):         46% (46282)

Update: Jenkins has regained the lead in East Baton Rouge, which is where almost all of the outstanding precincts are.

Update #2: We're ahead! We're ahead! With 79% of the vote in, Cazayoux is leading by over two thousand votes.

Update #3: It's over! We win! 99% in, Cazayoux appears to have won by 3,000 votes. Congratulations, Rep.-elect Cazayoux!

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

Louisiana special election results:

Sixth District

61% of Precincts Reporting

Don Cazayoux (D):          47% (28672)
Woody Jenkins (R):         49% (30039)

First District

55% of Precincts Reporting

Gilda Reed (D):                25% (5804)
Steve Scalise (R):            73% (17072)

As you probably know, the Sixth District race is expected to be close, and a possible Democratic pickup; the race has received a good deal of national attention over the past few weeks. The First District, on the other hand, is about as red as they come.

Update by kos: SSP has a handy results chart of the LA-06 April 5th runoff election, so you can get a good idea in which parishes Cazayoux should perform well:

Ascension and Livingston parishes are the GOP strongholds here. Iberville, St. Helena, and Pointe Coupee (where Cazayoux's home is located) are strong Democratic parishes in local and federal elections and Cazayoux should perform well here tonight. East and West Feliciana are historically Democratic, but have trended GOP in federal elections in recent years. Between the runoff performance and Cazayoux's small town profile, I feel optimistic about the Democratic chances in Feliciana tonight.

Update: With 6% in, there's been a break for Jenkins, as he has opened a nine-point lead (mostly from votes coming in from his stronghold in Livingston Parish). It's still very, very early.

Update #3: Nearly 30% of results in, and while it's early, things look good so far for the GOP. Jenkins has a six-point lead, and LA-01 is the GOP blowout everyone expected.

Update #4: 45% in in LA-06, and Jenkins leads by nine. Cazayoux is getting beaten badly in East Baton Rouge. He needs roughly 54% of the remaining vote to win, and that looks like a tall order.

Update #5: It ain't over! 60% in, Cazayoux is back to within 1500 votes.

Update #6: Cazayoux continues to inch upward. This is looking like a nailbiter again. We're going to start a new thread shortly.

Race tracker wiki: LA-01 LA-06

Hey, y'all.

I didn't see an open thread discussing the outcomes of the two special elections in Louisiana today, so I started one.

In case you've been living in a bubble, today LA-06 and LA-01 votes, with a very great shot at winning in LA-06.

I voted today for a candidate with a D behind there name, not the candidate I would have liked to have cast my vote but I did my duty as a citizen. My first choice in my district of course didn't qualify, but why should this election be any different. Seems that we lefties rarely enjoy the opportunity of having our candidate available when it comes time to make a statement, or express our true natures yet we still do what has to be done and show up to be counted. I voted for Dan Cazayoux in LA-06, he who was endorsed by the DCCC. The same DCCC which unltimately take the easiest route in their support, never taking a chance on truly progressive candidates like "Gilda Reed. Now Gilda was the candidte who I would liked to vote for today, alas I live approximately three miles as the crow flies in the neighboring district.

For me, politics is football, and election day is game day. Well, in the LA-06, it's game day, and according to  Talking Points Memo, the red team is just about ready to concede defeat in a plce they would have won easily in another time.

Cross-posted over at Daily Kingfish.

So, tomorrow is the special general election for LA-06 between Republican Woody Jenkins and Democrat Don Cazayoux.  

Apparently robocalls are being made to registered African-American voters here in LA-06 tonight, with the script roughly along these lines:

"The Democratic Party has never funded any African-American candidate in this district, and Don Cazayoux has no endorsements from any African-American leaders in the community"

Tomorrow is special-election day in Louisiana's 1st and 6th Districts, and with a red-hot race in the 6th District favoring Democrat Don Cazayoux, the GOP is putting everything they can into avoiding an embarrassing loss in bright-red territory.

Republican Woody Jenkins has proven to be a drain on party resources; he's been a lousy fundraiser, and his controversial, David Duke-tinged past has forced outside groups-the NRCC, the Club for Growth, and the shadowy Freedom's Watch-to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into a race in which they still trail by a large margin. In that sense, his candidacy is somewhat reminiscent of that of Jim Oberweis, another widely disliked perennial candidate who most recently lost election in Illinois' 14th District to Democrat Bill Foster.

Meanwhile, one seeming advantage for Republican Jenkins at the campaign’s outset — the fact that he was much better-known than Cazayoux — is a two-edged sword. Over the course of a 28-year tenure as Louisiana state legislator (1972-2000), Jenkins lost four statewide campaigns. Three of those bids were for the U.S. Senate, including a very close loss to Democrat Mary L. Landrieu in the 1996 general election, and one was for state elections commissioner. So while Jenkins can claim extensive political experience, it is difficult for him to portray himself as a political outsider at a time when many voters think that Congress and the Bush administration haven’t come close to solving the nation’s problems.

In fact, Jenkins has drawn comparisons to Oberweis, the dairy executive and frequent candidate who lost that Illinois special election in March. Oberweis had high negative ratings in part because he had waged three losing campaigns for statewide office, and it was hard for him to rehabilitate his image as a flawed candidate.

"Probably an additional factor in Louisiana is Woody Jenkins has been around a long time. This is the same thing we had to some degree with Oberweis," NRCC chief Cole admitted. "You get some scar tissue if you’re in politics and you make tough calls and tough decisions."

Unfortunately, Jenkins' proxies are running into their own troubles: a CBS affiliate in Baton Rouge pulled the Freedom's Watch ad from the air after the Cazayoux campaign correctly argued that it was false. Nicely done, watchers of freedom.

As Republicans always do, they have tried to divert attention from Jenkins (who is disliked) and Cazayoux (who is liked) by using Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi as their big bad liberal scarecrows. The new scarecrows are in wonderful company, of course, following in the proud footsteps of every prominent national Democrat before them. We'll see how well it works for them; the last poll showed Cazayoux leading by fully nine points, so it sure doesn't look like a world-beating issue.

We'll be covering the election results tomorrow evening. James L. at Swing State Project reports that yesterday the DCCC put an additional $267,000 into the race, bringing their total expenditures in the race to just under $1.2 million.

Their commitment to this race indicates that they're perfectly prepared to go toe-to-toe not only with the NRCC, but with their shadowy surrogates like Freedom's Watch and the Club for Growth. If we win, it will not only be a blow to the NRCC, but to the credibility of these groups as well. Freedom's Watch will have a hell of a time trying to swing the presidential election if they can't swing this one.

Let's hope that Sunday finds a punch-drunk Freedom's Watch licking their wounds and ruminating on how they can find a way to escape their irrelevance.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06