Republicans win key runoff races

Some good election news for the Republicans on the heels of the Chambliss runoff win this Tuesday in Georgia. Republicans won two upsets in Louisiana Congressional races. Results here:

LA-2 , Orleans, Jefferson Parish: In a huge upset win, little known Republican attorney Anh "Joseph" Cao beat nine term and criminally indicted William Jefferson(D). Jefferson had been expected to easily win. Cao becomes the first Vietnamese member of U.S. Congress. LA-4, Shreveport-Bossier City, Sabine Parish, et. al., Western LA, TX/AR border: Republican Dr. John Fleming wins. Fleming was trailing by about 3% early in the election results but came on strong in the end to beat Carmouche(D) by 356 votes.

This win gives huge impetus to the proposition that we should "run every race":

As I noted yesterday and reiterate tonight, there could be no more vivid example of why we need to run Republican candidates in every district than Louisiana's 2nd. Cao won his seat more solidly than Fleming did in an R+7 seat. Starting with Obama CoS Rahm Emanuel, Democrats started to understand that Congressional races can be very nonpartisan under the right circumstances and that poor performance or other personal shortcomings by the incumbent can render even a hefty party ID deficit meaningless.

Here in Texas, we have the state Senate district 17 runoff between Huffman (R) and Bell (D). I am going to go out on a limb and predict Huffman pulls out a victory next week. In these other runoffs, the large African American turnout that came out for Obama and helped downballot in November didn't return in the runoffs. Those are the voters Bell would need to win. Would they bother voting for a perennially-losing bland white shill for the plaintiff's lawyers?