Last night, in a special election to fill the remaining term of Republican Roger Wicker, who moved up to the Senate when GOP Senator Trett Lott stepped down, Democrat Travis Childers received about 49.4 percent of the vote. When his vote was combined with that of Democratic state Rep. Steve Holland, who (in short) tried futilely to have his name removed from the ballot, the Democratic vote amounted to 50.6 percent of the overall count.

Why would this be important? Simple: Mississippi's first congressional district, where this election was held, is very Republican. According to the Cook PVI, the district tends to lean about 10 percentage points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections. What's more, the National Republican Congressional Committee spent about twice as much on the race than did the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- despite the fact that the DCCC has $37 million more in the bank than the NRCC.

Childers unfortunately will not go straight to Congress, as he would have had he received 410 more votes, or about 0.7 percentage points more of the vote. Instead, because no candidate received 50 percent of the vote, plus one, there will be a runoff election held in the district on May 13.

Make no mistake, however: This was a major win for the Democratic Party and an even larger loss for the GOP. If a Republican is unable to crack 50 percent -- or indeed even receive a plurality of a vote -- in a special election in a very Republican district in a very Republican state when national Republicans spend twice as much money as national Democrats, how are they seriously supposed to be able to compete in November? Even more in the short run, if the NRCC is in a big money hole, how are they going to be able to defend this seat, as well as the open GOP seat in Louisiana's sixth congressional district which is now rated as leans Democratic (despite its Cook PVI of R+7), without once again falling into debt, thus hampering the party's efforts down the road?

Basically, the GOP now faces a choice between going for broke trying to save two more very Republican congressional districts from flipping to the Democrats before November and saving money in the hopes of being able to save such districts in November -- and even if the party opts to spend the money now, there's no guarantee that they will be successful (note their loss in the Republican-leaning Illinois 6 14 district earlier this year despite the NRCC's major investment in the race). And as Matt Stoller aptly and succinctly put it, "No one likes Republicans, even in R+10 districts."