Pennsylvania 17's incumbent derby: going back to the basics wins one for the Democrats. (Case Study).

While many political pundits look to campaign cash as the single factor than can trump all others, in the 17th District it was less important than candidate quality, campaign message and organization.

During the redistricting process that followed the 2000 census, Pennsylvania's state legislature had two goals in mind when they redrew the 17th Congressional District. They wanted to help re-elect 10-term Republican incumbent George Gekas to Congress while simultaneously ousting five-term Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Tim Holden, who represented the neighboring 6th District.

Pennsylvania had lost two of its 21 U.s. House seats after the census because its population did not grow as fast as other states. The GOP-controlled legislature--working with a Republican governor--was determined to knock out as many of Pennsylvania's congressional Democrats as possible. The goal was to increase the Republican advantage in the state delegation from one (11 to 10) to seven (13 to six).

Their plan worked at the bookends of the state, where veteran Democratic congressmen from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh chose to retire rather than face colleagues in primaries. Republicans obtained further attrition when US. Rep. Frank Mascara lost to U.S. Rep. John Murtha in the Democratic primary in a newly merged western Pennsylvania district.

Republicans could have drawn Holden into a northeastern Pennsylvania district, where he would have had to run against another Democratic incumbent. Instead state lawmakers thought that they could safely remove Holden by placing him in Gekas' Harrisburg-based district, the old 17th, which covered much of the lower Susquehanna Valley region.

In May 2002, one political analyst described the newly drawn 17th as a district with "a serious GOP tilt." Sixty percent of the new district had been part of Gekas' old district, and the Republicans had a voter registration advantage of more than 50,000. It was estimated that President Bush would have received 57 percent of the vote if the district had existed during the 2000 election cycle.

Also working in Gekas' favor were the facts that he had won his last election with 72 percent of the vote, and he would be up against a Democratic incumbent who, after five elections, was still unable to move his marginal 6th Congressional District seat into the safe column.

But the results from Election Day were quite different than Republicans had expected. Democrat Holden was the party's only winner in the four general-election match-ups between House incumbents, defeating Republican Gekas by 5,681 votes, 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent.

Defying Conventional Wisdom

Because Gekas seemed to have all the advantages, national and state Republican analysts thought that a Holden victory would be almost impossible. In March, Republican political consultant Keith Naughton …