Bilbray Beats Busby for Cunningham Seat

June 7, 2006

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Republican Brian Bilbray is ahead of Democrat Francine Busby with about half the votes counted in the race to fill out the remainder of “Duke” Cunningham’s term.

In a race seen as a barometer for the midterm elections, a former Republican congressman led early Wednesday in a GOP-dominated House district where Democrats had hoped to capitalize on the scandal that ousted former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Former Rep. Brian Bilbray was ahead of Democrat Francine Busby in early returns in the solidly Republican San Diego-area district about 30 miles north of the Mexican border. The immigration debate and a GOP corruption scandal were major themes in the campaign for the seat held by Cunningham before he went to prison for bribery.

With 47 percent of precincts reporting, Bilbray had 35,560 votes, or 49.7 percent, compared with 32,008 votes, or 44.7 percent, for Busby. Because votes were still being counted, officials said the winner may not be determined until later Wednesday. The victor will serve the remaining seven months of Cunningham’s term.

Bilbray made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, calling for construction of a fence “from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico” and barring illegal immigrants from collecting Social Security benefits. Busby, a local school board member who ran against Cunningham in 2004, focused her campaign on public dissatisfaction with the Bush administration and the GOP-led Congress. She assailed Bilbray for working as a lobbyist in Washington and routinely referred to him as “lobbyist Bilbray.”

Democrats spent nearly $2 million on the high-stakes contest, and the GOP spent more than $4 million. President Bush and first lady
Laura Bush recorded automated telephone messages for Bilbray. A mass e-mailing from Sen. John Kerry, the party’s 2004 presidential candidate, was sent last week to more than 100,000 supporters, urging them to help get out the vote. Al Gore also recorded a phone message telling Democrats to go to the polls.

If these results hold, the GOP will breathe a sigh of relief, at least temporarily. It’s quite likely the same two candidates will gear up to do it all over again in November.

Given the money spent, having the Republican barely hold a once-solid seat is an indication at the depths to which the Cunningham and Abramoff scandals have rocked the party. And this is after Busby shot herself in the foot with some ill-advised statements about immigration last week. Of course, nominating a congressman-turned-lobbyist to take the seat of a congressman forced from office after taking lobbyist bribes might not have been the ideal strategy from a GOP standpoint, either.

Update: The race has been called for Busby. Post title changed accordingly.

“With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Bilbray had 56,130 votes or 49.5 percent. Busby trailed with 51,292 votes or 45 percent.”

6 responses to “Bilbray Beats Busby for Cunningham Seat”

Mike Thayer

June 7, 2006 at 12:08 pm

I read somewhere that KOS earns $20K a month from advertisers.
Apparantly, those advertisers are wasting their money, because it doesn’t look like anyone’s buying what the moonbats at KOS are selling.

Talk about fraud…..
yetanotherjohn

June 7, 2006 at 1:29 pm

I think the context is that things are not likely to change next November. As is usual, the new person didn’t get as many votes as the previous incumbent. That is why open seats are considered more vulnerable. But for the Democrats to win majority control, they needed to be able to take open seats in districts that Bush won in 2004 (55%). If they couldn’t take this seat, where is the basis to think they can take the other seats.

To put it in another perspective, if Bush being ‘down’ 15% ala the polls, then your would expect that if that will be the critical factor in November, a district that went for Bush at 55% would see a republican get 40%. In fact, the democrat received very close to the 44% number that Kerry got (call it a 1% pick up). The republican candidate was off by about 5.5%, which was distributed among the anti-illegal immigrant independent, the libertarian and the 1% going to the democrat. So unless you can make a case that there are a number of seats won by 1% in 2004, it doesn’t foretell a tidal wave in the making.

The deeper question to me is what happens to the democrats if the tidal wave doesn’t wash ashore in November. Does the one-note band of Kossacks just scram their single note aria louder and more shrilly to drive the troops on to defeat in 2008 or does some adults recognize the problem and pull the party back?