MS-01: A chance for an upset?

We're now less than two weeks away from the next special election for the U.S. House, in Mississippi's 1st District. The election, which will fill the seat of appointed U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, will be held on April 22, although due to unusual circumstances it is highly likely to go to a May 13 runoff election.

The primary runoff elections were held last Tuesday, and Democrat Travis Childers emerged to take on Greg Davis, the Republican mayor of Southaven, in the November general election.

The special election, however, will be somewhat unique; the ballots for this election will contain not only the names of Childers and Davis, but of their opponents from the primary runoff, Democrat Steve Holland and Republican Glenn McCullough, as well as two independent candidates.

Even stranger, the ballot lists no party designation for any candidate. Just the names of six men on a piece of paper.

Diarist RBH, who wrote an excellent piece on this race last week, posted a picture of the ballot:

Steve Holland, who is friendly with fellow Democrat Childers, wants to be removed from the ballot to give Childers the best shot in the special, and is apparently willing to go to court to have his name removed:

"I want the ballot clean," Holland said Wednesday from the State Capitol where he is chairman of the House Public Health Committee. "I'm not going to Washington for six months, even if I am elected."

McCullough said Wednesday he also has asked for his name to be taken off the special election ballot, but noted he isn't "quite as adamant" as Holland.

With such a crowded and confusing ballot, I think another runoff is probably inevitable. This would, as James of Swing State Project notes in an excellent piece on MS-01, be the fourth election in the district in a matter of weeks.

James has also posted the results of a poll commissioned by the Childers campaign, which shows him statistically tied with Davis:

Travis Childers (D): 41%
Greg Davis (R) : 40%
(MoE: ±4.4%)

With all six names on the ballot included in the poll, Davis leads 29% to 27%.

If that polling is accurate, Childers certainly has an outside shot at taking the special. I wouldn't bet on it; it's a strongly Republican district which voted overwhelmingly for Bush twice. Registered Democrats are well represented in the district, but a good many of them are strongly conservative Democrats, holdovers from an earlier era of Southern politics.

Still, Childers would seem to be a fairly good candidate to win the votes of conservatives. Again from SSP:

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.

Nevertheless, he has underscored the substantial differences between himself and Republican Greg Davis in the campaign. Childers has called for a withdrawal from Iraq, and supports SCHIP expansion; Davis opposes both of these.

Regional politics may also come into play in this election. Davis' base of power is in DeSoto County, a part of suburban Memphis in the northwest corner of the district. Historically, the city of Tupelo has served as the district's base, and that is McCullough's home turf. It's certainly possible that given the bitterness of the Republican primary (in contrast to the Democratic race, where Steve Holland backs Childers "one million percent"), that a substantial number of Tupelo voters-and McCullough backers-could switch to Childers in the special election.

It would be immensely difficult to win this district, even under favorable circumstances. Nevertheless, it's clear that this will be a race worth following, with a small but legitimate chance for a shocking Democratic upset.