MS-01: Does Travis Childers Have a Shot?

This is Travis Childers, the Democrat running for the open seat left behind by Roger Wicker (R) when he was appointed to the Senate.

In his quest for the seat, Childers has fought through two elections — the November general primary and run-off — to get to where he is today.  Childers will face off with Southaven Mayor Greg Davis (R) in the April 22 special election to fill the seat.  The catch?  The losers of the primary run-off, Democratic state Rep. Steve Holland and former GOP Tupelo Mayor and TVA Chair Glenn McCullough (as well as two fringe-party candidates) will be on the ballot, although both have ceased campaigning for the job.  

The long list of candidates on the ballot, and their lack of party designation, means that there is a very real chance that this election will go to a run-off on May 13.  (Meaning that, to fill this seat, voters in MS-01 will have had to vote four times: the primary, the run-off, the special election, and the special run-off.)

So can Childers make a real race of this?  The traditional prognosticators — CQ, Cook (friend of SSP), et al — currently rate the seat as “Safe Republican”.  It’s hard to fault them for that — after all, this is an R+10 Southern seat that Bush won with 62% of the vote in 2004.  But I subscribe to a different view, and the Swing State Project currently puts this race at the more competitive rating of Likely Republican.

Over at DailyKos, RBH had a great diary on the dynamics of the race, which I encourage you to check out if you haven’t already.  Allow me to build upon his summary to give you a list of reasons why Childers has an outside chance of an upset here:

1. The right profile.  Childers has served as Chancery Clerk in Prentiss County since he was first elected in 1991.  A self-described “Jamie Whitten Democrat” (after the longtime congressman who represented this district from 1941 to 1995), Childers calls himself a “pro-life, pro-business and pro-guns” candidate, but retains a strong streak of economic populism to tap into the eastern portion of the district’s New Deal/TVA heritage.

   At the age of sixteen, having just lost his father, Childers went to work full-time to help support his mother and younger sister, and put himself through college.  Childers earned his real estate license at the age of 19 and built his own business from the ground up.

   In his campaign ads, Childers has targeted the rising cost of living, crumbling state of the economy, and unfair trade deals as issues he wants to address in Congress.  On the campaign trail, Childers’ populism rings loud and clear:

   When one panelist asked about high gas prices, Childers told her he has no sympathy for Exxon Mobile but a lot for the working-class families struggling to pay their gas and heating bills. Several adults in the crowd murmured their approval.

   In the primary, Childers was the only candidate — Democrat or Republican — to favor withdrawal from Iraq:

   He was the only one of five candidates — three Republicans, two Democrats — at a campaign stop in Nesbit last week who said point-blank that U.S. troops don’t belong in Iraq. […]

   Childers said he favors coming up with a plan to withdraw troops over 12 to 18 months and leave the Iraqis to fight among themselves, as they have for thousands of years.

   He said he’s amazed more people on the campaign trail haven’t asked about a national debt of more than $9 trillion.

   “We’re spending our money, folks, in Iraq. We need to be spending our money in America.

   Childers is the only candidate in the special election who understands the struggles of working families, and this should be an advantage to him as he tries to capture votes in rural Northeast Mississippi.

2. The enthusiasm gap.  In the April 1st runoff, 36,168 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary, while 33,135 GOP ballots were counted — a net turnout advantage of 3000 votes for Democrats.  Some of this might be due to old Dixiecrat habits dying hard, and a small amount could possibly be attributed to the unintended consequence of Rush Limbaugh’s “operation chaos” — GOP voters who requested a Democratic ballot for Mississippi’s Presidential primary were not allowed to cast Republican ballots in the runoff, but it’s hard to say how much of a factor that was here.




3. A little help from his friends.  The Democratic primary was an unusually cordial affair, as Childers and state Rep. Steve Holland considered themselves friends and did not let a competitive race come between them.  In fact, Holland is enthusiastically supporting Childers in the special election.  From the front page of Holland’s campaign website:
   

   I want you to know that Travis Childers is a dear friend of mine. I support him 1,000,000 %. April 22 is the next election that decides who will fulfill the remaining term until the November Election. I want you to help me put Travis in Washington on April 22nd.and keep him in office through the November election.

   If the Democratic family is in strong shape, the same can’t be said for the GOP here.  Davis mercilessly savaged McCullough’s record as TVA chair in his campaign ads on his way to a narrow primary win, and not surprisingly, McCullough’s campaign issued this non-endorsement endorsement:

   He also urged fellow Republicans to “unite behind all three of our nominees in North Mississippi – Senator Cochran, Senator Wicker and Mayor Davis. We have come too far as a state to turn back now.”

   But McCullough spokesman Brad Davis said the statement was “absolutely not” a personal endorsement of the runoff winner.

   When asked if it was a show of support for the party and not the person, Brad Davis said, “That’s a good way to put it.”




4. Regional rivalry.  Davis won the GOP primary on the strength of his base in DeSoto County, a suburb of Memphis in the Northwestern portion of the district, while losing the vast majority of the rest of the district to McCullough.  On the one hand, Davis has a powerful base — DeSoto’s population is 150,000 and is only growing stronger.  However, there is a palpable sense of concern in the rest of the district that the old population anchor of Tupelo, once considered the power center of this district, and other small cities and rural counties could be left with a “representation deficit” with the suburban-minded Davis in Congress.  From the Memphis Commercial Appeal:
   

   “This victory was a siren in the night to the eastern half of the district that Tupelo is not the capital of the First District anymore,” said Marty Wiseman, director of Mississippi State University’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government. “DeSoto County can no longer be shuttled off to the corner of the room. This runoff election and Davis’ win demolished that image.”

   Might this be of concern to the citizens of Tupelo and other areas of MS-01?  If so, Childers, with his Northeast base, is in a position to capitalize on the rift.

Make no mistake — this seat is an uphill climb for Childers, but it by no means can be written off completely.  With his support in county courthouse circles, his economic populism, and a regional rift to play to his advantage, Childers can make this seemingly-sleepy special election a race to watch.