Republicans have won a special election for the 1st Congressional District in Hawaii. Many have labeled this as President Obama’s home district since this is the seat he grew up in.
The victory gave the GOP 40% of the vote while the rest was split between 2 Democrats. Because the Democratic candidates won 60% of the total vote many consider the Djou victory a fluke but the 1st District does have a GOP base.
In addition no incumbent has ever lost re-election in Hawaii.
In fact this has happened before. In 1986 another incumbent named Cecil Heftel resigned to run for Governor and set up a special election.
This special was held on the same day as the primaries for the regular term and something very odd occurred. In the special election the winner was a Democrat named Neil Abercrombie (the same who resigned for this special). The runners up were GOP Patricia Sakai (2nd) and Democrat Mufi Hannemann (3rd).
But in the Democratic primary Hannemann won over Abercrombie making him an instant lame duck. His supporters refused to support Hannemann in the general and Sakai won with 59%. She held the seat for 2 terms before running for the US Senate.
So while Djou may have a rough road in November he is by no means a lame duck.