Missouri’s special election yesterday to fill the 8th district Congressional seat was expected to be a likely win for Republicans since, according to Charlie Cook, that’s a R+17 district. The final result ended up being an R+40 win. That’s not a typo, that’s a 40 point win in a district where Republicans have a registration advantage of less than half of that number.
I was not watching this race at all, but it appears that guns may have been a bit of an issue. The Reuters summary of the race mentioned that Democratic State Rep. Steve Hodges actually ran a campaign based on being pro-gun. The NRA ratings for the race show that there was still a distinction between the two. Republican State Rep. Jason Smith had a solid A rating that earned him the NRA endorsement while Hodges had an A-.
If gun owners did turn out and help make this such a landslide victory, then I hope it will inspire other gun owners in the rest of the country.
Given the cross-pollination between the gun vote and the Tea Party and the ongoing IRS scandal, I’d say the Gun Vote is VERY fired up.
I would have been shocked if he hadn’t won but the choice came down to a conservative Republican and a conservative Democrat. It was a very low turnout race in June so there may not be a whole lot to read in these particular tea leaves.
That’s very true, but a 40 point win is still noteworthy. A special election like this would actually be a chance for the Democrat to take the seat for a while since turnout is typically low and often members of the party assumed to win think they are safe. I wouldn’t take this for too much of a message, but if gun owners were part of the contingent that showed up in an otherwise overlooked election, that is still a positive sign.
I wonder if it had less to do with guns than with an anti-Democratic reaction to this. The timing by a Democratic governor would seem to have been bad for Democratic candidates, as I presume the bill in question was very popular in Missouri.