Democrat Hahn wins special House election

Democrats can breathe a sigh of relief: Democrat Janice Hahn
won Wednesday’s special House election, holding off self-funding Republican
businessman Craig Huey by a 54.6 percent-to-45.4 percent margin.

Hahn, a Los Angeles city councilwoman, will replace former
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who resigned to become president of a foreign
policy think tank.

{mosads}Her victory is a bright spot on a dark day: Hahn’s mother
passed away Tuesday, and she cleared her Election Day schedule to be with her
family.

Huey surprised observers on both sides of the aisle by
making the race closer than expected. He spent about $1 million in the race,
most of it his own money. Hahn spent close to the same amount as Huey, with
labor and Democratic groups stepping up with big donations to keep her close
financially.

Special elections are known for their low turnouts and
can have surprising results, leaving Democrats somewhat nervous about the race.
But the district’s Democratic lean was too much for Huey to overcome. Then-Sen. Barack Obama won 64 percent of the district’s votes in the 2008 presidential election, and the party has an advantage in
voter registration. 

That Huey made the race competitive at all shocked
observers, many of whom didn’t expect a Republican candidate in the general
election. The race was the first to test California’s newly minted “jungle
primary” system, in which candidates from all parties run on one ballot, and
the top two vote-getters of any party move on to a runoff if no one wins 50
percent on the first ballot.

Hahn was expected to be in the runoff with fellow Democrat
Debra Bowen, the California secretary of state, but they, along with liberal
anti-war activist Marcy Winograd, split the Democratic vote in the May primary
and Huey slipped by Bowen.

Hahn, whose brother was Los Angeles’s mayor, benefited in
the first round of voting from high voter familiarity with her last name, a
strong ground organization and a slew of early endorsements from prominent Los
Angeles Democrats. Huey spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first
round to raise his name identification.

But the councilwoman has struggled to unite Democratic
voters after a sometimes-nasty primary in which she and Bowen attacked each
other on environmental and labor issues. Supporters of the far-left Winograd
were less than enthusiastic about Hahn, an establishment candidate.

Labor unions and Democratic groups including President
Obama’s Organizing for America stepped in to make sure Hahn held the seat for
the Democrats, and former President Bill Clinton recorded a robo-call for her
in the closing days of the campaign.

Despite his loss, Huey could be in a good position for
another run in fall 2012. California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission
will likely make the district a bit more conservative before the next election,
and his strong performance this year and willingness to spend his own money
could make him viable in a general election next year.