DEEP IN THE HEART OF MISSISSIPPI.

A few days ago, Terry Samuels wrote:

Most Democrats will spend Tuesday night watching election returns from the West Virginia primary. But if they want some hints about what will happen in November, they should really be watching a little congressional special election in the northeastern Mississippi.

The Tuesday special election in Mississippi's 1st Congressional District is being held to replace veteran GOP congressman Roger Wicker, who was appointed to the Senate last December by Gov. Haley Barbour to replace the retiring Trent Lott. Wicker had been in the House for five terms and had always won re-election with more than 60 percent of the vote. This is exactly the kind of district that Democrats are routinely forced to write off because it is so difficult to overcome the culturally tainted associations that come with being a Democrat.

The election is producing extraordinary levels of GOP anxiety, because of what it says about Republican prospects in November. While losing any congressional seat these day is distressing for a Republican Party looking for ways to rebuild a majority in the House, to lose this particular seat, in this particular state, is to confront just how much trouble Republicans are in with voters all over the country. Mississippi is the last place Republicans should be in trouble.

Last night, Travis Childers, the Democrat, won the seat with 54 percent of the vote. And this, of course, is after Democrats won a deep red seat in a Louisiana last week, and took Dennis Hastert's seat in Illinois a few months ago. It's always hard to draw a line from special elections out to general election, but Democrats are taking seats they have no right to even be contesting. And given how many retirements the GOP has seen this year, and how much voter registration Obama and Clinton have kicked off, well, things don't look so good for the Republicans. I was thinking about this yesterday when I met Josh Segall, an impressive young Democrat running for a Republican-leaning seat in Alabama's third district. Normally, I'd write that sort of race off. But this year? How can he lose?