Massachusetts' Special Congressional Election Tightens in Time for Tuesday's Election

A new voter preference survey taken in the week before a special election is to be held October 16 for Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District reveals that it could be a close contest between presumed favorite Democratic candidate Niki Tsongas and her Republican challenger Jim Ogonowski.

The results revealed by the Survey USA polling company which was commissioned to do the polling by the Boston-based WBZ-TV television station shows Tsongas leading Ogonowski by a mere 52 to 41 percent margin among the 800 adults interviewed about this race between October 8-10, which is very close considering the polling results has a sampling error of 4.7 percent and only 18 percent of those questioned readily identify themselves as being affiliated with the Republican Party.

If elected, Tsongas would take over a congressional seat once held by her late husband Paul, who served in the district as a House Representative for four years before being elected as a U.S. senator for the entire state for one six-year term beginning in 1979. He later unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 1992 but lost to Bill Clinton who eventually defeated George H.W. Bush in the general election that fall. Tsongas died of cancer in 1997.

The special election is to replace long-time Congressman Marty Meehan, who resigned from the position on July 1 to become the Chancellor for the University of Massachusetts. He had held that post since 1993, having been elected to that same seat eight straight times.

Ogonowski leads Tsongas 56 to 38 percent by male voters questioned in the survey, but trails 64 to 27 by females being polled. And where the poll results turn surprising is that the Republican aspirant leads over the Democratic nominee by a 50 to 37 percent margin by those voters in the district declaring themselves to be independents.

Even though the district is considered to be safe for the Democrats since native favorite son John Kerry received 58 percent of the vote there in the 2004 presidential election, a strong showing or even an outright win by a Republican would send a wake-up call to the leaders of the Democratic Party in Congress and those candidates running for the White House that the American voter could be dissatisfied with the performance of the nation's current legislators as the country approaches a new election in 2008. There are no statewide election choices being held on that same day so voter turnout in the area is expected to be low.

The district is composed of towns and cities in three counties in the middle and northern part of the commonwealth bordering New Hampshire. Those counties are Essex, Middlesex and Worcester.

All ten of the Democratic incumbent House Representatives in the state were re-elected in the 2006 general election with five of them, including the recently resigned Meehan, actually running unopposed that year.

The state hasn't had any Republican membership in the House of Representatives since 1994 when two GOP congressmen served. Yet both were subsequently defeated two years later. The last time this district had a Republican officeholder occurred in 1973-75 when it was represented by Paul Cronin.

Once this contest is over and the newly elected House Representative is sworn-in the 110th Congress will have just two vacant seats among its 435 members. An election is set for December in Ohio to replace Republican Paul Gillmor who died from a fall inside his Washington residence on September 5. The Governor of Virginia is set to announce in the next few days the date for an election to replace Republican Jo Ann Davis who passed away from breast cancer on October 6.