GOP candidate hopes contest for open US House seat is referendum on Obama, health care

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GOP hopes for upset in Fla. US House election

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Republican Ed Lynch hopes public disdain for President Barack Obama’s health care plan and low congressional approval ratings will help him upset his Democratic opponent in Tuesday’s special U.S. House election.

The South Florida contest between Lynch and Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler is the first U.S. House race since Congress passed Obama’s massive health care overhaul.

Lynch, a 44-year-old contractor, is trying to make it a referendum on health care in a heavily Democratic district where about 40 percent of voters are senior citizens. It’s a strategy that helped Republican Scott Brown win the Massachusetts Senate seat held for nearly half a century by Democrat Edward M. Kennedy.

“Seniors understand that this is a broken promise,” said Lynch, who wants the health care bill repealed.

But beating a Democrat in a district that sent Wexler, a self-proclaimed “fire-breathing liberal,” to Congress seven times will be a difficult task.

“If he did it, it would be a huge upset and would suggest that anger over the health care bill is certainly going to last potentially until the fall elections,” said Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political science professor.

Deutch, also 44, is widely seen as the front-runner after Wexler, of Boca Raton, resigned in January to lead a Middle East think tank. He was hugely popular in District 19, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties and has more than twice as many registered Democrats than Republican — 234,000 to about 111,000.

The district voted about 65 percent for Obama in 2008.

Lynch is also slamming Obama’s stimulus bill and strategy for the war in Iraq.

But Deutch, who supports the health care bill, said he isn’t worried about the political climate in Washington.

“People are going to the polls to elect their representative in Congress and they want someone who is going to stand up for them, who is going to be effective and deliver results,” he said. “That’s what this campaign was about when I got into it, and I don’t think anything has changed.”

Lynch and Deutch also face no-party candidate Jim McCormick. The winner will serve the remaining months of Wexler’s term, then will have to run in November for his own full term.