Mississippi 1st District Results

The more important political contest taking place today isn’t happening in West Virginia. It is going down in Mississippi. That is where the 1st District competition pits Travis Childers (D) against Greg Davis (R) in the battle for the seat being vacated by Rep. Roger Wicker (R). Democrats are hoping that Childers will pull out a victory in a district where the red blood runs deep- a feat Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-LA) pulled off recently.

How red is this district? Bush won it 62% to 37%. How southern is it? Greg Davis once offered to put a statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis in his yard.

The polls are closing now but I’ll update with the results when they’re in.

Update 1: Early (but promising) results:

5% Precincts Reporting

Travis Childers (D): 57% (1804)

Greg Davis (R): 43% (1335)

Update 2: The gap is unfortunately narrowing:

33% Precincts Reporting:

Childers (D): 53% (15570)

Davis (R): 47% (13670)

And, for those too lazy to read the comments, Will provided some geographical info on the area where this runoff election is taking place:

Just for reference, MS-01 is the northeastern part of the state, including Tupelo and Columbus.

Update 3: The AP has called it for Childers, making him the third Democratic Representative for Mississippi (out of 4).

89% of the Precincts Reporting:

Childers (D): 52% (49406)

Davis (R): 48% (46009)

Wrap Up: This is a great victory for the Democrats. The Republicans tried to tie Childers to Obama (and by association, Rev. Wright) and it didn’t harm him in a deeply red district. The Republicans poured $1.3 million into this race for a seat that (pre-Bush) would’ve dropped into their laps and lost. As you can see from the numbers above, the turnout was extremely high- over 100,000 votes in a runoff election. This is an exciting year to be a Democrat.

Tags: Don Cazayoux, Mississippi, Travis Childers, Greg Davis, Roger Wicker