Sunday, February 24, 2008
Special Elections could make new superdelegates
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There are six open seats in Congress, and six Special Elections are scheduled over the next 3 months:
| District | Date | Predecessor |
| Illinois 14th | March 8, 2008 | Dennis Hastert (R) |
| Indiana 7th | March 11, 2008 | Julia Carson (D) |
| California 12th | April 8, 2008 | Tom Lantos (D) |
| Mississippi 1st | April 22, 2008 | Roger Wicker (R) |
| Louisiana 1st | May 3, 2008 | Bobby Jindal (R) |
| Louisiana 6th | May 3, 2008 | Richard Baker (R) |
Democrats are favored to keep the Democratic seats, and Republicans are favored in the Mississippi and Louisiana seats. The Hastert seat leans Republican, but a recent poll shows it could be very close.
And every Democratic winner automatically becomes a superdelegate, and increases the number of superdelegates, and therefore total delegates, by one over the current numbers.
Note: The CA-12 election is an open primary, If no candidate gets a majority, a run-off will be held on June 3. The MS-1 is also an open primary, with the run-off scheduled for May 13.
Update: The latest poll in IL-14 has Foster (D) leading 45-41 over Oberweis (R). Picking up Hastert’s seat would be a huge win for the Democrats.
Update 2: Foster is running ads featuring Obama’s endorsement, and being from Illinois, Foster is a lock to support Obama should he win.
Posted by Matt at 11:39 PM 
It would be awesome to see Denny Hastert’s seat here in IL turn blue. That’s the most consistently Republican district in Illinois.
A few years back, Jim Oberweis ran for a different position and ran an ad all over Chicago where he was in a blackhawk helicopter holding a machine gun and yelling about illegal immigration. If anyone can blow this election for the GOP, it’s him.
miller, Is this the ad you mentioned?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nst-aXvdrR4
actually, i think it is. note that there’s no yelling, machine gun, or view of the helicopter. maybe i saw a parody somewhere that i’m getting confused with what actually ran. six years is a long time ago, i suppose. my bad!