Republican Jean Schmidt has won a special Congressional election in southern Ohio beating out Democrat Paul Hackett by a 52 to 48 percent margin. Hackett was attempting to become the first Iraq war veteran elected to Congress. He had run on a platform highly critical of President Bush’s handling of Iraq. Analysts had originally predicted the Republican Schmidt would easily win since no Democrat had come close to winning the House seat in decades. But Hackett nearly pulled off a major upset by losing by only about thirty-five hundred votes. The Cincinnati Enquirer described Hackett’s run as “nothing short of astounding.”