(CNN) -- Here's something shocking. 

Democrats and Republicans totally disagree about the significance of the GOP's victory in the first major competitive congressional ballot box test of 2014. 

Republican candidate David Jolly narrowly edged out Democrat Alex Sink to win Tuesday's special election in Florida's 13th Congressional District. Jolly will fill out the term of his former boss, longtime Republican Rep. Bill Young, who died in October. 

Republicans win first election showdown of the year 

The race was consistently in the spotlight with national Republicans framing the election as a referendum on Obamacare. They injected a massive infusion of outside ad money into the race and some pundits cast the election as a possible bellwether for November's midterms. 

"I think this was a referendum on (President Barack Obama's) policies and on Obamacare, that played out significantly to the disadvantage of (House Democratic Leader) Nancy Pelosi. And I think it sets the tone for what's coming in the fall," Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told CNN Wednesday. 

"We've been trying to tell people this is a referendum election, Obamacare is not helping people the way it was promised, and Democrats are going to have a lot of answering to do," Walden added. 

But his counterpart at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sees very little predictive value in the results. 

"Special elections are not indicators of the future. They never have been. They never will be. And certainly this is not an indicator of the future," Rep. Steve Israel, the DCCC chairman, told reporters. 
Of what politcal party?
Republican candidate David