The Swing State Project is doing something that we haven’t done since the early days of Jon Tester’s race in Montana — independently of any other blog, we’re laying our cards down on the table and offering our endorsement and fundraising support to a congressional candidate: Democrat Travis Childers, who is running in the special election to replace Roger Wicker in the House of Representatives.
We’ve had our eye on MS-01 for some time, giving it a competitive rating before any other major prognosticator did so. Travis Childers bore out our projections and then exceeded them, coming just 400 or so votes shy of outright victory in the special election on April 22nd. Now he faces a two-candidate run-off on May 13th. This is a very winnable race, but only if Childers gets all the help he needs.
Childers, the Chancery Clerk of Prentiss County for nearly two decades, is a serious economic populist with true-blue small town Mississippi roots. He supports S-CHIP, opposes CAFTA and wants us to withdraw our troops from Iraq in 12 to 18 months. And he holds these populist positions in a heavily red district: MS-01’s PVI is R+10, and it gave Bush 62% of its vote in 2004. If Childers can win this seat, it will be a crippling blow to the NRCC, who have spent nearly $300,000 against Childers, only to come up short last Tuesday. But we can be sure that they’ll be back in full force, doing all they can to hang on to this seat in May. And that’s why we have to step up and fight back.
Our goal: $2300 for Childers. In other words, that’s the equivalent of one “maxed out” big dollar donation.
Together, we can do this. So please support Travis Childers today with whatever you can manage.
$25 to get things started. Come on, people! We can do this!
Can we do the same for Don Cazayoux? Or seeing as how that election is a little more than a week away, is it too late for our money to help him much? If we win one of these seats, that’s a definite red flag for the GOP, but if we successfully do the 1-2 punch, that’s going to start a tidal wave of panic: big dollar donors fleeing, a broke NRCC, guys like Bill Young and John McHugh suddenly finding retirement a lot more appealing…
And can this be cross-posted at Kos? Not to try and get an endorsement over there too, or to otherwise step on Big Orange Satan’s toes, just to reach more eyeballs and let people know that this event is going on and that they should come over here to donate.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the ballot for the special election non-partisan? What about for the runoff?
This’ll be a sweet, sweet victory.