CQ:
Scenario 1: Latta wins narrowly.
The Democrats would spin a narrow loss in Ohio as something of a victory, in light of the normally strong Republican performance in northwestern Ohio, and brandish an unexpectedly close result as further evidence that voters want change.
Democrats would adopt the same arguments that Republicans employed after an Oct. 16 special election in Massachusetts’ 5th District, where Democrat Niki Tsongas defeated Republican James Ogonowski by a relatively narrow 5 percentage-point margin in a constituency that had long elected Democrat Martin T. Meehan by wide margins. An NRCC post-election release was entitled “The Democratic Wave Breaks” and described Tsongas as “underperforming,” adding that the close race proved “a major shift in the national political environment.” Look for the DCCC to also describe a narrow Latta win as subpar.
The Republicans would say that a win is a win, and that Latta’s victory, however narrow, amounted to a Republican “hold” in a state where the political environment has been poisonous for Republicans, even 13 months after the Democratic landslide victories of Ted Strickland for governor and Sherrod Brown for senator.
Scenario 2: Weirauch wins narrowly.
This shocking result would reverberate in national political circles and deliver a big psychological blow to House Republicans about halfway into the 2008 election cycle, and a little more than a year after they lost 30 seats and the House majority to the Democrats.
Democrats would hail the result as repudiation of the Bush administration and further testimony of the strength that the Democratic Party showed in the 2006 elections, especially in districts that normally vote Republican.
Republicans would portray a Weirauch victory as an aberration and assert that she is unlikely to be re-elected in November 2008, when she would have to share a ballot with a Democratic presidential nominee who is more likely than not to lose the 5th District.
Republicans might also attribute a Latta loss to the fractious Republican primary election on Nov. 6 — especially if there is evidence of a depressed Republican turnout Tuesday in areas sympathetic to state Sen. Steve Buehrer, Latta’s chief primary opponent — and also to the Club for Growth, the conservative political organization that backed Buehrer and aired television ads critical of Latta’s record on tax issues during the primary campaign.
Scenario 3: Latta wins handily.
Just a few weeks ago, this appeared to be the likeliest of the three scenarios, given the strong Republican lean of the Ohio’s 5th District. Now a big Latta win surely is the least likely possibility, given how Republican officials have felt compelled to go into overdrive to criticize Weirauch’s views in the waning weeks of the campaign and to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on anti-Weirauch television advertisements. Latta and the NRCC — which has been pinched for cash since the GOP lost its House majority — would almost surely be ignoring Weirauch if Latta were safely ahead.
But should Latta somehow win decisively — say by 10 percentage points or more — the Republicans would claim a big victory in a state where Democrats made ample gains in 2006, and also argue that the results were a setback to a new House Democratic leadership that was supportive of Weirauch’s candidacy.
The Democrats would say that outcome is typical of a district that backed Bush with 61 percent of the vote in 2004, and that they made the Republicans expend several hundred thousand dollars that otherwise could have gone to bids to recapture some of the seats that they lost to the Democrats in 2006.
We already won, given the broke NRCC was forced to spend a fifth of their cash on hand on an R+10 district, so worst case scenario for us -- Latta wins by more than 10 points -- means only that the district stayed true to its partisan rating yet cost the NRCC nearly half a million in precious funds. Not a bad outcome. Anything closer than that, and we prove that Republicans face a hostile electorate and won't be able to fully lean on their district's partisan ratings.
If the second scenario happens, expect a flood of retirements as Republicans everywhere pass up a tough reelection battle in a toxic environment for Republicans. \
Update: This is hilarious!