In the strange world of politics, where up is down and down is up, Republicans tout as a victory David Harmer's 10-point loss to Democrat John Garamendi in Tuesday's special congressional race.

With an 18-point party registration advantage, off-the-charts name identification and double the cash of his opponent, Republicans say Garamendi should have won with a far bigger margin.

"Harmer winning 43 percent of the vote in an overwhelmingly Democratic district in the Bay Area does not speak well for the Democrats," California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring said the morning after Tuesday's election.

Yes, this is largely spin.

Harmer outperformed most of the previous Republican challengers in District 10 for several reasons unrelated to sour sentiment over Democratic policies.

For one, low-turnout special elections typically skew toward Republicans because they vote in higher percentages than Democrats. Political experts say such elections involve too few voters to serve as useful harbingers.