I'll second.
O’Donnell was a disaster but I’m not sorry Castle isn’t there, he’d be be useless.
The last house special we won, not counting Indiana-3 and NY-29 which were held on election day 2010 (I’m guessing they had 2 races on the ballot?), was for Nathan Deal’s safe seat in Georgia, last June. Before that, Jindal’s seat in LA after he was elected Governor.
Besides Djou’s plurality win against 2 rats (and NY-29 which we would have won soon if Patterson had called a special before election day) the last rat seat we took in a special was VA-4 way back in 2001.
In that time we’ve lost 7 including NY-26 and almost lost a couple others. Of the 6 lost prior to NY-26 we managed to take back 1 in 2008 (LA-6, by plurality) and 3 in 2010 with a 4th Ben Chandler “winning” by the skin of his teeth.
Taking into account the loss for Murtha’s seat and loss for Gillibrand’s seat (which we got in ‘10), it’s a pretty pathetic record in specials. The only time we really beat expectations was losing MA-5 by only 51-45 in 2007.
The last time we one a truly rat-leaning seat by more than a mere plurality (like Djou and Bill Redmond in New Mexico-3 in 1997) I can’t say.
Before Ben Chandler took Ernie Fletcher’s seat in 2004 the rats hadn’t taken one of ours in a special since MA-1 in 1991 (death of Arch-RINO but pro-life (I think) Silvio Conte)
Here a list (can’t be complete though)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_special_elections_to_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives
Anyone know if Nevada-2 (Heller) is going well?