By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff

Democrat Travis W. Childers led the field and just narrowly missed the majority vote he needed for an outright victory in a special election held Tuesday in Mississippi’s 1st District. Childers now moves on to a May 13 runoff with Republican Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, in a district that has a conservative lean and usually votes strongly Republican in contests for federal office.

Childers received 49.4 percent, just short of the 50 percent threshold, according to complete but unofficial returns. Davis received 46.3 percent of the vote and trailed Childers by more than 2,000 votes, staving off elimination only by running up a margin of more than 8,000 votes in his home base of DeSoto County. Four other candidates were on the ballot, on which party affiliations were not listed, and they combined to total the remaining 4.3 percent of the vote.

Childers now faces a three-week runoff campaign with an uncertain outcome. But his first-place finish marks the latest startling surprise for the Democratic Party, and the latest setback for a national Republican Party that has struggled to regain its footing since its losses in the 2006 congressional elections overturned its majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The Democrats have sought to maintain their 2006 momentum by competing aggressively in a series of special elections for seats vacated by Republican incumbents. They scored a major and symbolic victory March 8 when Democrat Bill Foster , a businessman and scientist, won the special election in Illinois’ 14th District from which Republican J. Dennis Hastert — the former House Speaker — had resigned last November. And there is a strong Democratic takeover campaign occurring in Louisiana’s 6th District where a May 3 special election will replace former Republican Rep. Richard H. Baker, who resigned in February to head a financial trade association.

Not long ago, a serious Democratic challenge in Mississippi’s 1st District would have seemed implausible. But Republican Roger Wicker , who first won the seat in 1994 and had dominated its House elections since, vacated the seat in December to accept appointment to the Senate seat from which Republican Trent Lott had resigned to pursue private sector opportunities.

Despite the fact that residents of the northern Mississippi district favored President Bush with 62 percent of their votes in 2004, Democrats saw an opportunity in Wicker’s departure. And Childers, who holds a variety of administrative responsibilities as chancery clerk in Prentiss County, proved an attractive candidate who projects an image as a conservative Democrat.

While Childers previously won the Democratic nomination for the regularly scheduled November election by breezing to a relatively easy win in the April 1 primary runoff, Davis had to slug his way through a bruising Republican runoff campaign in which he bested former Tupelo Mayor Glenn McCullough.

While the special election runoff will give the Republicans a second chance to reclaim their hold on the seat, it almost certainly will require an additional infusion of spending by the party’s House campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which badly trails its partisan counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in overall receipts and remaining cash on hand. The NRCC plunged nearly $300,000 into the Mississippi 1 race, while the DCCC ended up spending about half that amount, according to independent expenditure reports available Tuesday on the Federal Election Commission’s Web site.

Based on the near-even split in the first-round special election voting, CQ Politics will change its rating on the general election race to No Clear Favorite from Leans Republican.

Childers campaigned on conservative positions, hoping to capture crossover voters who have favored Republican candidates in recent elections. Childers emphasized his “pro-gun” and “pro-life” positions, while taking populist stances on economic issues that included opposition to trade deals he deemed “unfair” to American workers.

Childers was endorsed by The Blue Dog Coalition, a group of House Democrats who define themselves as fiscal conservatives, as well as local newspapers including the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and the Columbus Commercial Dispatch.

Davis also emphasized his conservative positions, characterizing himself as a strong opponent of illegal immigration and abortion who would fight against liberal lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Davis locked up support from the state’s high-profile Republican figures, such as Gov. Haley Barbour .

The NRCC, meanwhile, sought to persuade voters that Childers, despite his conservative talk, would align with liberal Democratic leaders in Congress. The committee also ran ads accusing Childers of shoddy business practices and property tax delinquencies.