Congressman Chaka Fattah's plan to win big in the federal election this fall is not so far-fetched when considering his remarkable record of victories.
In the 2002 election, Fattah won 88 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania's Second Congressional District with 150,000 votes to his opponent's less than 25,000 votes.
Fattah has had landslide victories in every election since 1994, when he began his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives representing much of Philadelphia and nearby Cheltenham Township.
"Fattah's getting 85 to 90 percent of the vote on average," political analyst Terry Madonna said. "This is a huge, overwhelmingly Democratic district."
"We expect to win," Fattah campaign manager Chaka Fattah Jr. said of the elder Fattah's attempt to be elected for a sixth term. "The constituents are very happy, as shown by the last election and the previous elections before that."
The congressman does not have a challenger for the April 27 primary election, and no Republican candidate has been publicly announced for the position, according to the Fattah campaign.
Madonna said that his records showed Steven Donlo as the Republican challenger for the election, but Fattah's campaign was unaware of a specific challenger.
Regardless of who the candidate is, they would have "virtually no chance of winning," Madonna said. "The Republicans, when they run people, they're sort of nominal candidates."
"There's little chance that a Republican would come close to beating Fattah," Madonna added.
"Fattah's goal for the 2004 campaign is to 'win big with at least 90 percent of the vote,'" Fattah Jr. said, citing the strong showing since 1994 and the support that has followed.
"We're running on our strong background," Fattah Jr. said, describing the congressman's focus on education and hard work for his constituents.
"He's a first-rate congressman, one of the hardest working congressmen you'll find," Madonna said. "He's obviously on the more liberal side," but the district is "very, very much pro-Democrat."
The second congressional district is "one of the poorer districts ... with a mean income of $25,000 a year," Madonna said, adding that the district has about 65 percent black residents and includes colleges such as Penn.
Fattah's win in 1994 was the highest percentage victory of any freshman in the U.S. House of Representatives.
