Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the result should serve as a “wake-up call” to Republican candidates around the country.

Childers, the longtime Prentiss County Chancery Clerk, campaigned as a conservative Democrat and overcame GOP efforts to tie him to more liberal elements of the Democratic Party, including presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

Despite Cheney’s visit, Childers actually made headway in Davis’s home county, more than doubling his vote from three weeks ago and partially thwarting a sizeable rise in turnout there. About 7,500 more voters cast ballots, according to unofficial results, with Childers drawing about 3,000 of them.

Childers drew about 2,000 of the 12,500 votes in Desoto in April.

Davis and Childers will square off again in November, as they have already been elected their parties’ general election nominees.

Republicans cried foul Tuesday after the DCCC circulated a flier stating Davis wanted a statue of Ku Klux Klan organizer Nathan Bedford Forrest moved to his home city.

Davis’s campaign disputed this and pointed to a 2005 Memphis Commercial Appeal article that states he was willing to accept a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, while another mayor would accept the Forrest statue. A later New York Times article stated Davis had welcomed the Forrest statue.

Both national party House committees plugged more than $1 million into the race, and spending by the candidates and outside groups like GOP-backing Freedom’s Watch pushed the race over $5 million total.

The NRCC’s investment was particularly painful given its stark cash disadvantage with less than six months to go until the November election.

The NRCC had just $7.2 million in the bank as of March 31. It spent $1.3 million in Mississippi.

The Democratic majority in the House has now expanded to 236-199.