- Congressman Elect David Jolly (l.) courting voters.. (R-FL)
Republican pundits and politicians have been worried about demographic shifts that favor more and more Americans living in Democratic leaning communities, a win by the GOP candidate in a special election yesterday in Florida has bolstered hopes for more success in November, during the regular election season, as David Jolly beat Adelaide Sink.
According the to Associated Press,
“While Republicans held the congressional seat for more than four decades until the death of Rep. Bill Young last year, the district’s voters favored Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Democrats were hopeful, clearing the field for Sink, the state’s well-known chief financial officer and the party’s gubernatorial nominee in 2010. Republicans failed to recruit their top picks, leaving Jolly to fight a bruising three-way primary.
This stretch of beach towns and retirement communities on the Gulf Coast is the type of terrain where Democrats need to compete if they hope to win seats in the House and keep control of the Senate. Analysts said the loss could bode badly for the party, which is already saddled with an unpopular president and a slow economic recovery.
“The overall picture does send a message and it says, ‘Be afraid. Be very afraid,'” said Jack Pitney, a former national GOP official and government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. “This is one more piece of evidence that 2014 will be a very difficult year for Democrats.”
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