By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

Virginia Republican Rob Wittman will soon be a member of the U.S. House, after his easy win in a special election Tuesday. Wittman’s victory in Virginia’s Republican-leaning 1st District will fill the vacancy that has existed since October, when four-term Republican Rep. Jo Ann Davis died of breast cancer.

Wittman, a longtime officeholder in eastern Virginia and a member of the state House of Delegates, had 61 percent of the vote in complete but unofficial returns to defeat Democrat Philip Forgit, an Iraq war veteran and former teacher who took 37 percent. Independent Lucky Narain, a member of the Army Reserves, took 2 percent. Returns from each city and county in Virginia’s 1st can be accessed here.

The hastily scheduled contest, held in the midst of the busy December holiday season, forced the candidates’ campaigns to focus heavily on boosting the expected low voter turnout.

The abbreviated special election campaign — the candidates were selected in nominating conventions just one month ago — posed more challenges for Forgit than for Wittman, who had the advantage of a strong Republican-voting base in a district that stretches from the Tidewater region in southeastern Virginia to suburbs of Washington, D.C., in the district’s north. President Bush took 60 percent of the district’s vote in 2004; George Allen, the Republican Senate incumbent who ran in 2006, and Jerry W. Kilgore, the party’s 2005 nominee for governor, both ran ahead in the 1st even as they lost statewide.

“Rob ran a solid campaign on the issues important to Virginians such as lower taxes and fighting illegal immigration,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma said in a statement. “Rob’s victory today is more evidence that Americans are ready for real change in Washington.”

Sensing that Wittman had a solid advantage, the national House campaign arms of both the defending Republicans and challenging Democrats were not very active in the Virginia 1 race. They focused more intently on Tuesday’s other special congressional election — a closer race in Ohio’s 5th District, where Republican state Rep. Bob Latta defeated Democrat Robin Weirauch.

A longer period of campaigning and more funds might have allowed Forgit and his allies to more broadly promote his background as a military veteran and educator. Forgit — who lost a campaign for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2003, again in a Republican-leaning district — received help from Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine and former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, who is the early favorite in Virginia’s 2008 U.S. Senate race to succeed retiring five-term Republican John W. Warner (no relation).

“I’m proud of the work that we did. We fought a great fight,” Forgit said in a statement. “Today I am proud to be a Virginia Democrat and I have to say how thankful I am for the support I received from our Virginia Democratic leaders as well as local chapters and volunteers across the district.”

In Wittman, Republicans fielded a politically seasoned candidate who had few vulnerabilities for Democrats to exploit. Wittman is a veteran officeholder, having served as a town councilman, mayor and county commissioner prior to winning election to the state House in 2005 from a district in Virginia’s Northern Neck, abutting the Chesapeake Bay. Wittman holds a Ph.D. in public policy and administration and has a background in environmental health, and recently left his position as a field director for the state health department’s shellfish sanitation division.

With the assistance of House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, who campaigned in Virginia’s 1st, Wittman is likely to win a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. Davis served on this panel, which is a helpful — and possibly essential — assignment for a representative from the 1st District, which includes the Marine Corps facility at Quantico and other military installations. The district also includes a workforce that is employed by the massive shipbuilding facility in Newport News, at the southeastern end of the district.