One of the greatest disappointments of November 4 was Wyoming, where one of our best Congressional candidates--Gary Trauner--couldn't overcome the Republican flood of a presidential election vote. But there's a very good bit of news out of that state with a Democratic legislative pick-up, coming by way of a highly unusual revote.
Democrat Jim Roscoe, a home builder, marathoner and former ski patrolman who has never run for public office ran for the open District 22 seat in the state House against Republican Charles Stough, a recent transplant. Roscoe won in the general election in a complete squeaker, by just four votes--2,991 2,891 to 2,887. But then it got kind of hinkey. Joe Albright, Teton County Democratic State Committeeman, explained what happened in an e-mail:
Even though John McCain and Sarah Palin carried the legislative district with 60.2 % of the vote on Nov. 4, Roscoe manage to run more than 10 percent ahead of the Obama-Biden ticket. He won just enough to carry the legislative district by four votes on Nov. 4.
But then the Republicans managed to find that in the Alpine precinct in the Lincoln County portion of the district, the election judges mistakenly allowed 11 voters to vote even though they lived in the adjoining legislative district. (As it turned out, all three of the election judges in Alpine that day were Republicans.) The upshot was an order Nov. 12 from the State Canvassing Board that new election had to be held Nov. 25 in the Alpine precinct where the 11 registration errors occurred.
Calling for a revote in a situation like this is highly unusual, and the Republicans were probably certain that, with just a four vote margin, they could get this one back. This district was created expressly to keep a Democrat out of the House. Here's Joe's description of it:
The district he won was a classically cynical Republican gerrymander, created by Republican state legislature after the 2000 census to be Republican forever. Intent on diluting the voting strength of the progressive town of Wilson in Teton County, the Republicans in the Legislature created House District 22 by slicing off half of Wilson and combining it with a heavily Republican swath of Lincoln and Sublette Counties. Until now, neither Lincoln or Sublette have ever been represented in the Wyoming legislature by a Democrat, at least as far as anyone can recall.
Roscoe won the revote by a 320-163 margin, on the basis of an energetic door-to-door campaign. He got almost every one of the voters who had voted for him in the general election to come back out and vote again, while the Republican turnout was dismal. It handily decided the race.
Wyoming Democrats still have a huge deficit in the state House. Republicans will have a 41-19 seat advantage over Democrats. But this win in one of the toughest districts in the state is reason to hope. This is the second House seat to flip in Wyoming in 2008. State party chair executive director Bill Luckett is optimistic, something he probably didn't think he'd be feeling about Wyoming when he woke up on November 5:
"It just shows what we can do when we get a really good candidate who worked really hard to get his message out to the voters," Luckett said. "It's not rocket science, but it's not easy when you start with a D next to your name."
That's harder to accomplish state-wide in a presidential year, as we found out with Gary's race, where a really good candidate worked really hard but couldn't stem the tide. Roscoe's win provides a little salve to the hurt of that loss.
It's also great news looking forward in Wyoming. Wins like this will help more as the state Dems are finally getting a solid farm-team building.