country. Additionally, other traditionally conservative organizations backed Lampson's candidacy. The National Rifle Association and the Veterans of Foreign Wars both supported Lampson in the 2006 election. Three national political journals—the Cook Political Report, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, and Congressional Quarterly—rated the race as Leans Democratic. On October 30, 2006, a Zogby poll commissioned by the Houston Chronicle-KHOU-TV was released, showing the write-in candidate, Sekula-Gibbs, at 27.9 percent and Lampson at 36 percent, with nearly 25 percent still undecided. Lampson defeated Sekula-Gibbs in the November 7 election, 52 to 42 percent, with the remaining 6 percent going to Libertarian Bob Smither. He officially returned to Congress on January 4, 2007. But, DeLay was still on the ballot as the official Republican candidate (Democrats successfully sued to prevent Sekula-Gibbs' from replacing DeLay on the ballot, forcing her to run a write-in campaign). Meanwhile, Sekula-Gibbs ran unopposed in the special election. This caused confusion for many voters, who were told repeatedly "write in Sekula-Gibbs" but then found her name on the ballot. This resulted in a large (but unreleased) number of excluded votes for Tom DeLay in the general election. Numerous ballots were discarded, including all straight-party votes and direct votes for DeLay. This caused a small outcry of resentment from supporters of Sekula-Gibbs, who felt the election was stolen and their votes disfranchised. The two elections held on the same day resulted in Sekula-Gibbs winning to serve the last two months of DeLay's term, while Lampson won the seat for a full term, starting in January 2007. 2008 Lampson faced reelection in 2008 against Pete Olson, an attorney and a former aide to Senators Phil Gramm and John Cornyn. Despite the perception that the district was more competitive than the one DeLay represented for his first 10 terms, the 22nd was considered a heavily Republican district. It gave Bush 64 percent of the vote in 2004. By most accounts, it was one of the few realistic chances for a Republican challenger to unseat a Democrat in what was forecast to be a bleak year for Republicans. Olson and Lampson agreed to a debate on the issues on October 20, 2008, in Rosenberg, Texas. An October 22, 2008, poll by John Zogby and the Houston Chronicle said that Olson had a 17-point lead over Lampson. On October 30, 2008, Larry Sabato predicted Lampson's Congressional race to be a "Republican Pick Up" with Olson