7TH DISTRICT HANDICAP
Now that we have two candidates for the March 11 special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of Congresswoman Julia Carson, I can handicap the race. While there is no arguing that the 7th District has been strongly Democratic, there is some evidence that this race will be somewhat competitive. I used the last four 7th District races for my analysis: 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006. Carson beat Marvin Scott in 2000 59-40 percent, by a 30,000-vote margin. She beat Brose McVey in 2002, 53-44 percent, by a 13,000-vote margin. The Congresswoman won in 2004 against Andy Horning by 54-43 percent or by about 24,000 votes. In 2006, Carson won by a smaller spread, 54-46 against Eric Dickerson with about a 10,000-vote margin.
We can extrapolate a couple things from these results. The obvious one is that Marion County has been Democratic for a while. The subtler one is in non-presidential/gubernatorial years the margin of victory is smaller and in 2006 the victory was the smallest being the same as the straight ticket spread, regardless it’s still a victory.
For Democrat Andre Carson and Republican Jon Elrod working against this backdrop, both face unique challenges. Carson only won with a tad more than half the voting delegates at his slating convention so he will have to work to unify his party. He will face primary challenges from State Representative David Orentlicher and former State health Commissioner Woody Meyers. His work will be made more difficult by the fact that Marion County Democrats are split along racial, philosophical and geographical boundaries as evidenced by Saturday’s vote. However the biggest divide is the perception that the “old machine” (i.e. the Center Township crowd) manipulated the slating process to ensure a Carson victory. Carson, a very likeable guy, will have his hands full with that political albatross around his neck.
For Elrod, he doesn’t have to worry about a divided political party however as the numbers demonstrate, he has an uphill fight. He also faces a County Democratic Party that has it’s political back to the wall. After losing the Mayor’s office, the City-County Council local Democrats want to win because they don’t have a choice. To lose the 7th Congressional District would be the equivalent of being cast in the political abyss. Elrod does have two victories under his belt in Center Township, State Representative and Center Township board, those are no small tasks, but you can’t ignore the reality of the numbers.
May the best man win.
