'Super Tuesday' Primaries Today: PA-12 is Bellwether for November Elections

Robert Stacy McCain's been doing on-the-ground reporting on Republican Tim Burns' campaign in Pennsylvania's 12th District. The big meme is that Democrats need a win in PA-12 if they're to have any chance of avoiding a bloodbath in the November midterms. See, "Pennsylvania Race May Show Democrats Which Way Midterm Winds Blow":

WAYNESBURG, Pa. — Sam Boyd has been a Democrat his entire adult life, just like many here in this mostly rural, economically impoverished southwestern corner of the state, where the party’s roots run as deep as the coal underfoot.

But in Tuesday’s closely watched special election to succeed the late Representative John P. Murtha in the state’s 12th Congressional District, Mr. Boyd, 65, is leaning toward casting his vote for the Republican candidate, Tim Burns, a millionaire former software entrepreneur who got involved in politics through the Tea Party movement.

“I’m for Burns for the reason I was for Obama,” said Mr. Boyd, a retired general contractor who served as an unpaid campaign liaison for Mr. Murtha in his county. “I want change.”
Whether or not Mr. Burns pulls off a victory over his Democratic opponent, Mark Critz, in what polls suggest is a competitive race, voters like Mr. Boyd embody the nightmare scenario for Democrats nationally: that even committed Democrats will turn on their party.

David Weigel reports on the right's excitement over PA-12, "The conservative media go all in for Tim Burns." And see Chris Cillizza, "Incumbent Armageddon?: What to watch for" (via Memeorandum). See also Dan Balz, "Primaries may help foreshadow November elections."

RELATED: At Politico, "What to watch in Tuesday's primaries." (Via Memorandum.)