Opinion: A Massachusetts House race is closely watched

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In a few hours, we’ll learn whether voters in Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional District have decided to send the widow of onetime Democratic presidential contender Paul Tsongas to Congress. The most interesting aspect of the special election is that people are not sure whether Nikki Tsongas will win.

(UPDATE: Late Tuesday night, with most of the votes counted, the Associated Press reported that Tsongas scored a fairly narrow victory over her GOP opponent, 51% to 46%.)

Perhaps no other state in the nation is more identified with the Democratic Party than Massachusetts. The last time its 10-member House delegation included Republicans was in the mid-1990s. Martin Meehan, the Democrat who represented the 5th District but who stepped down this year to become a college president, ran unopposed in 2006. And in 2004, when he faced a GOP opponent, he won with 67% of the vote.

So, as we previously noted, it seemed safe to assume that the Democratic nominee to replace Meehan would have an easy time in today’s balloting. So much for assumptions.

Tsongas got roughed up a bit in winning the Democratic primary last month, taking some flak because she has never held an elective office. That problem was pretty much neutralized when the GOP nominated Jim Ogonowski to oppose her -- he’s also a first-time candidate. But he’s proved to be a good one. And even if he only comes close to Tsongas in the final tally, many analysts ...

will point to his campaign as offering a primer for Republicans running in competitive races next year.

Ogonowski, no doubt with an eye on the low approval ratings for Congress in polls, has run hard against Capitol Hill’s Democratic leadership. One of his ads proclaimed: ‘The problem: Congress is broken. The answer: Jim Ogonowski.’

A strong showing will reinforce the political potency of Sept. 11 (which will particularly hearten Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign). Ogonowski is the brother of a pilot of one of the planes flown into the World Trade Center, and he has not hesitated to let voters know that. He aired an ad that included footage of the crash and featured his widowed sister-in-law extolling his virtues.

Ogonowski also has spotlighted differences between himself and Tsongas over dealing with illegal immigration as the race’s key issue.

-- Don Frederick