Darn the bad luck!
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Wednesday, June 2
November implications of Herseth's win unclear
By Mike Madden | GNS
WASHINGTON - Figuring out how South Dakota's House special election will carry over to November requires bridging yet another partisan gap.
Ask a Democrat, and Stephanie Herseth's narrow win early Wednesday is a sure sign that voters are sick of President Bush's leadership and want a change in the fall. Ask a Republican, and the lesson is that a well-known Democrat who ran to the right of her party only barely held on to win a race dominated by local issues.
The answer may not be clear until the fall.
Herseth, 33, beat Republican Larry Diedrich by less than 3,000 votes to become the first woman elected since 1938 to federal office in South Dakota. She succeeds Bill Janklow, who resigned in January after he was convicted of manslaughter for killing a motorcyclist in a car crash.
Herseth arrived in Washington Wednesday after the House wrapped up its business for the day. She will be sworn in Thursday.
She is the second Democrat this year to win a formerly Republican House seat, following Kentucky's Ben Chandler. Herseth gives the heavily Republican state its first all-Democratic delegation since 1937, and narrows the GOP majority in the House to 11 seats.
Herseth agreed with Diedrich on issues like the war in Iraq and banning gay marriage, and played down their differences on abortion, which she favors keeping legal with some restrictions. She didn't turn the campaign into a referendum on Bush, as Democrat John Kerry is doing in his presidential race.
Bush never campaigned for Diedrich, though House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and first lady Laura Bush did travel to South Dakota on his behalf.
``Democrats have to be happy to win two special elections in Republican districts,'' said Amy Walter, who analyzes House races for the non-partisan Cook Political Report. ``At the same time, we have to be careful not to read too much into either of those races.''
Jubilant Democrats said Wednesday that victories by Herseth and Chandler give them clear momentum heading into the November elections. Bush won big in both Chandler's district in central Kentucky and South Dakota in 2000. Flipping the seats from GOP to Democratic control makes Democratic leaders optimistic.
``The South Dakota election was really an election about change,'' said Rep. Bob Matsui, D-Calif., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which spent about $2 million on Herseth's behalf and poured volunteers in to help get out the vote. ``There's no question that that the American public, after Kentucky and now the South Dakota race, would like to see change. They're unhappy and dissatisfied with the status quo.''
But Republicans said they never expected Bush's popularity in the state to translate to the House race.
``Despite what the national Democrats are trying to say, there are no national implications in South Dakota,'' said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. ``South Dakotans do not have a problem voting for Democrats at the federal level.''
Voters in South Dakota will get another chance to send a cryptic message to observers in November. Both Herseth and Diedrich will be seeking a full two-year term, and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle faces a tough battle for re-election against Republican John Thune.
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