By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

Ohio Republican Bob Latta , a veteran state lawmaker, won a special U.S. House election Tuesday and will become the next representative of the state’s 5th District, succeeding the late Republican Paul E. Gillmor — and filling a seat that his father, Republican Delbert L. Latta, once held for 30 years.

The younger Latta defeated Democratic nominee Robin Weirauch, taking 57 percent of the vote in complete and unofficial results. That vote share was somewhat below the norm for a Republican in a strongly GOP-leaning district that gave President Bush 61 percent in 2004. But it was a clear victory that punctured Democrats’ pre-election contentions that they might score an upset, one that would be a rebuke to the Bush administration and the Republican Party in general.

The Democrats’ efforts to challenge in the 5th District produced a vigorous campaign in which sizable spending by both Latta and Weirauch was supplemented by the active participation of both national political parties’ campaign organizations. The Democratic Party’s intervention on behalf of Weirauch contrasted to their arm’s-length approach to her longshot bids as the challenger to Gillmor in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

Yet even though Weirauch — a former economic development official — had improved from 33 percent against Gillmor in 2004 to 43 percent in 2006, the stronger party backing did not produce an improvement in her 2007 special election result. Latta’s unofficial victory margin of 14 percentage points was actually larger than the 13.6 percentage-point margin by which Gillmor defeated Weirauch last year.

Latta will soon be sworn in to succeed Gillmor, who died in September of injuries suffered in a fall while serving his 10th House term. Latta triumphed in his second try for the seat, albeit after a hiatus of almost 20 years. He ran in the 1988 race to succeed his father, who was retiring, but lost the Republican primary to Gillmor by the razor-thin margin of 27 votes.

Gillmor, who had served in top leadership positions during 22 years in the state Senate, had portrayed Latta then as a political greenhorn. But Latta rebounded and built his own long record in public office, as a commissioner in Wood County (which includes Bowling Green, the 5th District’s largest city) and later in the state legislature, where he served in the Senate and more recently the House.

Latta jumped out to an early lead in partial vote returns that were reported after 7:30 p.m. eastern time, when polling stations closed. The Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm of House Republicans, declared victory in statements they issued shortly after 9 p.m., when less than half of the vote had been reported.

While Latta ran a few percentage points behind Bush’s 2004 presidential election performance in most of the 16-county district, Democrats needed much more slippage than that to have Weirauch pull a big upset. In fact, the pitched campaign activity by both parties in recent days suggested a tight race, with an outcome closer than it actually turned out to be. Latta won all 16 counties that are wholly or partly in Ohio’s 5th District.

Latta won 55 percent of the vote in Wood County, where his longstanding ties explain why he outdid Bush’s 53 percent performance there in 2004 and Gillmor’s 50.4 percent showing there in 2006. Weirauch needed to make major inroads in Wood to have a chance at upsetting Latta.

Latta ran as a steadfast conservative opposed to taxes and illegal immigration, and he touted endorsements from groups that promote social-issue and economic-issue conservatism. Weirauch’s campaign concentrated on economic issues and emphasized on opposition to trade pacts that she said have decimated the district’s manufacturing economy. She was aided by the AFL-CIO, which made telephone calls, voter visits and distributed flyers.

A serious contest was not anticipated in the immediate aftermath of Gillmor’s death. Ohio’s 5th District, which includes substantial rural territory, is among the most strongly Republican constituencies in Ohio. Ohio’s 5th has been represented exclusively by Republicans in the House for the past seven decades, and by only three individuals — Cliff Clevenger (1939-59), Delbert Latta and Gillmor.

But the political environment nationwide and in Ohio has trended sharply away from the Republicans in the past few years, and Democrats sensed an opportunity to pull an upset that they could brandish as a repudiation of the Bush administration and as a boost to the Democratic Party’s confidence as it prepares to defend its congressional majorities in the 2008 election.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the political arm of House Democrats, reported at least $244,000 in “independent expenditures” in the Ohio 5 special, in which the party criticized Latta on tax issues and also sought to tie him to a Ohio Republican Party establishment that has been tarnished by ethics scandals.

Latta’s win in the face of the Democratic push was trumpeted by national Republican officials. “This campaign became a cause c??l??bre for national Democrats and liberal activists nationwide, but in the end, Bob’s anti-illegal immigration, anti-tax hike message won the day,” NRCC chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma said in a statement.

Yet even though the Democrats’ spending did not produce a victory, its expenditures made up just a meager share of its total campaign treasury, which had $29.2 million left in cash on hand at the end of October.

And the contest wasn’t a total loss for the Democrats, as it drew the Republicans into a costly political firefight that the GOP could hardly afford. The NRCC spent at least $428,000 on the race — nearly one-sixth of the $2.6 million it had in available cash at the end of October. NRCC officials believed the investment was needed because it did not want to suffer the embarrassment of losing in a district the GOP had dominated for decades.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said in a statement that the race “should have been a cakewalk” for Republicans and that the GOP now has fewer financial resources at its disposal and “will be even less equipped to play effectively” in several Ohio districts that are expected to host politically competitive races in 2008.

The NRCC criticized Weirauch’s position on immigration and other issues and sought to link her to national Democratic figures regularly demonized by Republicans as doctrinaire liberals, such as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton , a leading Democratic candidate for president, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

Weirauch’s campaign receipts for the special election far surpassed the $117,000 she raised for her little-noticed 2006 campaign against Gillmor. Latta raised much more than Weirauch for the entirety of the special election campaign — though he had to expend more resources than Weirauch leading up to the Nov. 6 special primary. Latta narrowly defeated state Sen. Steve Buehrer, surviving a fractious Republican contest, while Weirauch sailed to an effortless victory in the Democratic contest.

Ohio Republican Party chairman Bob Bennett issued a statement that praised Latta’s victory and said it was a rejection of Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland , a former veteran House member who won Ohio’s top job in 2006 and campaigned for Weirauch.

But Bennett also warned against the destructive consequences of unruly primary elections such as the Latta-Buehrer battle.

“This is still a race we could have lost,” Bennett said. “Our candidate came out of a nasty primary wounded and broke. He was dramatically weakened by a vicious primary battle that angered voters, embarrassed the party and disgraced the honorable legacy of Paul Gillmor. Republicans cannot allow those nuclear primary tactics to continue if we expect to win future elections.”