"The district had been so radically gerrymandered by Republican governors and legislators that it was all-but-unimaginable that a Democrat could ever be competitive there" and that Hackett, "a smart telegenic Iraq War veteran", had been "swiftboated" in the final days of the campaign by "Republican operatives and right-wing talk radio hosts".As a measure, perhaps, of both Schmidt's unpopularity, and a growing anti-Republican trend in Ohio due to the unpopularity of Bush and Ohio Governor Bob Taft, Schmidt defeated Victoria Wells Wulsin, the second-place finished in the 2005 Democratic primary, by an even smaller margin than that by which she had defeated Hackett in 2005.