The GOP effort to win House seats is so strapped for cash that its leader has now taken to scolding members to get them to cough up donations. In the wake of their defeat this past weekend in Louisiana, NRCC chair Tom Cole reportedly told a conference meeting today that anybody not donating for next week's Mississippi election "ought to be ashamed of themselves."

Very few of them have given to Mississippi GOP candidate Greg Davis, nor did many of them give to Woody Jenkins in Louisiana. By contrast, new Louisiana Congressman Don Cazayoux (D-LA) was able to raise over $160,000 in direct donations from the House Dems, and he and Mississippi candidate Travis Childers have both been helped immensely by the DCCC's financial advantages.

In a further indication that the Democrats are well-positioned to expand their House majority this November, Democrat Don Cazayoux has won a special election tonight for a Louisiana seat that has been in Republican hands for over 30 years.

With 99% of precincts reporting, Cazayoux leads with 49,371 votes, or 49% of the vote, followed by Republican Woody Jenkins at 46,554 votes, or 46%. In a district that voted 59% for President Bush in 2004, that is simply a stunning result.

This is on top of another big Democratic pick-up two months ago, when Bill Foster (D-IL) won the suburban Illinois seat of former GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert.

In short, this year isn't going very well so far for the NRCC.

Democrats have a big opportunity to expand their House majority today, and in a very unlikely place. The special election in Louisiana's Sixth District -- which gave 59% of its vote to President Bush in 2004 -- is being held today with Democrat Don Cazayoux favored to beat controversial Republican Woody Jenkins.

The GOP undertook an effort in the home stretch to tie Cazayoux, a social conservative, to the national party in general and Barack Obama in particular as an early experiment in using the Democratic frontrunner as a cudgel against down-ticket Democrats.

However, a Republican source tells TPM Election Central that while the ad has actually had some success, there isn't much optimism that it will be enough to pull Jenkins through: "Cazayoux's negatives have certainly gone up, but the question is whether or not it's been enough to make Woody Jenkins a viable alternative."

Polls close at 9 p.m. ET tonight.

The big-money conservative third-party group Freedom's Watch is apparently desperate to hang on to a GOP House seat that is in danger despite being in a deep-red district.

In their latest gambit, Freedom's Watch didn't even try in their new attack ad to back up a key accusation against Don Cazayoux, the Dem candidate in tomorrow's closely-watched Louisiana special election for Congress. And in response, one local station pulled the ad from the air.

Here's the ad, which got taken off the air by Baton Rouge's CBS affiliate:

The Cazayoux campaign complained that there was no evidence at all that he supports benefits for illegal immigrants, and his true position is just the opposite -- indeed, they noted, the ad doesn't actually offer any sort of citation or other piece of evidence.

A new SurveyUSA poll in Louisiana shows Democrats on track to win this Saturday's special election to fill the vacancy of former Rep. Richard Baker (R), who resigned in February to become a lobbyist.

The poll shows conservative Democrat Don Cazayoux with 50% support, with 41% for GOP candidate Woody Jenkins, a longtime controversial fixture in Louisiana politics.

This seat has not been held by a Democrat since the 1970s, and the district voted 59% for President Bush in 2004, so a Dem win here would be big news indeed.

Here's the new ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee for Mississippi special election, part of the new Republican media offensive against Barack Obama. The ad ties Democratic nominee Travis Childers, a social conservative, to such big-name liberals as John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and Obama, too:

The latest FEC filings show an ad buy of over $260,000 -- meaning that the cash-strapped NRCC sees both a real need to spend money in this deep-red district, and also some real potential for using Barack Obama's name to poison down-ticket Dem chances.

Late Update: Here's the newest ad over in the contested Louisiana special election, tying Dem nominee Don Cazayoux to "the Obama-Pelosi team":

The Republicans have been sharpening their message against Barack Obama with $500,000 in new ads in the ongoing special House elections in Mississippi and Louisiana -- a stark contrast to the old days when Hillary Clinton was the boogeyman of Republican advertising.

Here's the NRCC's ad in the contested Louisiana special election:

"I think he's the weaker candidate, and I've thought that for over a year now," said NRCC Chairman Tom Cole. "He's very inexperienced. He is by any definition liberal and to the left of Hillary Clinton, and he will give us plenty of ideological divisions to work with."

An intriguing pattern has emerged in two special elections for the House in Louisiana and Mississippi: Both of the candidates backed by the National Republican Congressional Committee have had a bit of a, shall we say, white supremacy issue.

This is not to say that the two are white supremacists -- rather, they have both flirted with organizations and/or people who are known for, at a minimum, dabbling rather heavily in such sentiments.

The Mississippi case is fairly straightforward -- the GOP candidate is a mayor who had once agreed to accept a gift to his city from a white supremacist group, then backed off. The Louisiana example is a lot more complicated, involving attempts to cover up payments connected to the infamous Klansman/Neo-Nazi David Duke.

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The new NRCC ad in a Louisiana special election for the House has an interesting motif against Democratic nominee Don Cazayoux (prounced CAZH-you) — some forced schoolyard-style word-play around his name:

"Cazayoux, 'Tax You,'" the announcer says, not quite getting the pronunciation just right. "Hard to spell, harder to pay for."

Of course, there's a pretty thin record of scoring political points by making a joke of someone's French surname in Louisiana. But we'll see how it plays this time on May 3rd.

The GOP may be on the verge of losing what should have been a safe seat in Louisana. An internal Republican poll in advance of one of the upcoming special elections in the state reportedly shows that former state Rep. Woody Jenkins, who is expected to win the Republican primary runoff this Saturday, is losing by three points to expected Democratic nominee Don Cazayoux.

The district went to President Bush by a 19-point margin in 2004, so this would be a particularly juicy pickup for national Dems.

Yet another House Republican is apparently heading for the exit. Eleven-term Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA) will reportedly announce soon that he is resigning from Congress to head up the Managed Funds Association, the top lobbying group for the hedge fund industry. "It's expected to be official and announced this week," a source told Roll Call.

The district is strongly Republican, giving 59% of its vote to President Bush in 2004, but Democrats think they may have a shot at it with the right candidate. The Dems have already united behind state Rep. Don Cazayoux.

In another sign that national Dems are working overtime to expand the map of districts in play in 2008, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is pumping a robocall into the district of longtime Louisiana Rep. Richard Baker — even though his seat can arguably be seen as safe.

The call features the voice of Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), talking about the Dem Congress' efforts to expand the SCHIP program that provides healthcare for children.

"But with over 91,000 Louisiana children without health insurance, I was shocked that Congressman Richard Baker voted against providing children access to health care they desperately deserve," Kilpatrick says. "Please call Richard Baker at 225-929-7711 and tell him it's time he put our children first."

Baker was first elected to the House in 1986, and has not faced a close re-election since 1998, when he won a 51%-49% race.