Campaign Diaries

Among the best news Republicans received on Election Night was Lynn Jenkins’s 5% victory against Democratic incumbent Nancy Boyda (KS-02) - a race that was undoubtedly one of the most fascinating of the 2008 cycle.

An unexpected victor in the blue tsunami of 2006, Boyda knew she would be a top target this year as KS-02 is a heavily conservative district (Bush received 59% of the vote in 2004). The DCCC included her in its Front line defense program and reserved $1.2 million worth of air time. Yet, Boyda was worried that national Democrats being implicated in her re-election efforts would give Jenkins an opening to blast her as being beholden to liberal interests and she insisted the DCCC not take any part in her re-election efforts.

The DCCC agreed to pull out. I wrote at the time that “Boyda may come to regret that she did not rely on her party’s committee and chose to unilaterally disarm.” And fair enough, the Topeka Capital-Journal published a story today in which Boyda laments the failure of positive campaigning and blasts Jenkins for winning based on misleading attacks. Had the DCCC been more involved, their expenditures would surely have been negative ads attacking Jenkins, but Boyda deprived herself of that help.

What is most fascinating is that the DCCC nevertheless poured in $450,000 in KS-02 in the final two weeks of campaigning, going against Boyda’s wishes. However, the DCCC felt bound enough to only air a positive ad touting Boyda, which was perhaps the worst of both worlds: the DCCC did not do what it can do best (attack the Republican while giving its candidate some cover) but Republicans still got to complain that Boyda was not respecting her word and was getting outside help.

In short, the DCCC’s investment might very well have helped Jenkins. Due to the summer back-and-forth between Boyda and the DCCC, the committee’s last-minute involvement became a big story in the local press and Boyda’s decision to react defensively and turn against the DCCC only made these developments more compelling, giving Republicans a high-profile opportunity to highlight Boyda’s party affiliation.

As revealing is that even in this district in which it wasn’t supposed to invest did the DCCC outspend the NRCC. When it was first revealed in August that Boyda had gotten its national committee to pull out, it was assumed that she would be heavily outspent as Republicans would take advantage of that opening to swarm in the one district they had for themselves. Yet, the NRCC was not able to budget more than one week of advertisement, spending about $400,000 - $50,000 less than its counterpart.

Of course, Jenkins ended up narrowly winning so the NRCC’s budgetary problems was not enough to save Boyda. But other Republicans who were not running in such friendly districts were not so lucky: The NRCC’s was unable to fund many top-tier challengers it had recruited in 2007 (in CA-11 or CT-02, for instance), allowing potentially vulnerable Democrats to easily win their first re-election campaign - the one in which incumbents are always most vulnerable.

Now, the Democrats’ hope to reclaim the district largely depend on whether Boyda decides to seek a rematch, a prospect that is plausible enough according to The Hill. If she does, 2010 could be the fourth cycle in a row featuring Boyda as the Democratic nominee: She lost in 2004 before prevailing in 2006 and losing her seat two weeks ago.

Another possibility - albeit an unlikely one - is for Boyda to run for the seat of retiring Senator Sam Brownback. If she does, she better accept the DSCC’s help.