Informed Speculation

Lots of eyes were on yesterday’s election to fill the seat vacated by the now-disgraced Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham in California’s 50th district as a bellweather for the Democrat’s 2006 prospects. Kos, naturally, sees victory in defeat (Francine Busby failed to get the 50%+ needed to avoid a runoff):

Not enough voters voted for change and we’ll have to do this again in June. Democrats need to be given a reason to vote so they turn out for Busby during the runoff. This is very much a winnable race. But like any such races, much depends on our ability to motivate and turnout our voters.

One hope for the runoff — it will be held on the same day as the GOP primary for the November election. So if all goes well, they will enter that runoff as fragmented as they were today.

What? The good news is it will be the same day as the GOP primary? Won’t that be likely to bring out…GOP voters? You get famous for thoughts like this?

Jay Cost is having none of it:

There is no other way to understand this but as a loss for the Democrats.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the type of seat the Democrats need to capture to take the House. As a matter of fact, they will have to win tougher seats than CA 50. With a Democratic loss there, it will become harder to see a Democratic victory in open seats like IL 06, MN 06 and WI 08. These are similar in their partisan composition to CA 50 — but, unlike CA 50, none of them have a Republican incumbent tarnished by scandal and none of them have 13 Republican candidates fighting among themselves. These open seats need to switch to the Democrats for a change in control. A Democratic takeover of the House with CA 50, IL 06, MN 06 and WI 08 off the table is unimaginable.

In actuality, then, it has been a pretty good week for the GOP. In the last seven days :

(1) Tom DeLay decided not to run for reelection, thus greatly increasing the chances that the GOP will hold TX 22.

(2) Bush’s job approval seems to have hit its floor, despite (yet another) round of bad news for this embattled White House.

(3) The GOP appears poised to retain CA 50.