Election Results

Voter turnout yesterday was typical of an off-year election.  Turnout is always lower while the voters who do show up for these elections are older and less diverse than voters in a presidential year.  Campaigns, that were built (such as Deeds) on a plan to turn out thousands of young and minority Obama voters, were doomed from the start.

Governors
It’s easy to over-generalize from the governors’ elections.  But they really are not very strong predictors in what voters will do in federal races.  Ticket splitting is much more common in governors’ races than in federal elections.  Many states have a tendency to rotate Democrats and Republicans in the governor’s office after a term or two.  I think that was a significant factor in Virginia.  In Jersey, Corzine was the victim of anti-incumbent anger.  And that is more likely to affect incumbents of either party going into next year.

In New Jersey, obviously with the amount of money, time and effort Labor pumped into the race, we will be in Christie’s crosshairs.  The NJ Governor is one of the most powerful in the country so the next four years will be very difficult.  The Legislature remains in Democratic hands.

In Virginia, Deeds never had a message, never established his own identity as a candidate and never had much of a strategy.  His loss was only slightly worse than expected.  The Democrats lost 5 seats in the House but maintain a 1 vote majority in the State Senate as a possible stop gap against McDonnell’s right wing agenda.

NY 23 Special
The NY 23 race should not necessarily be seen as a rejection of right-wing Republican candidates.  Both McDonnell in Virginia and Christie in NJ are right-wingers (I’d even say both of them are wingnuts.)  But McDonnell ran as a moderate on the surface and took advantage of a weak Democratic candidate.  And Christie was clearly very conservative.  He just wasn’t the incumbent.  Both of them won the independent vote.  That could be trouble next year.

Owens won the House seat because the Republicans were split.  In both NJ and VA, the Republicans were united behind a right wing candidate.  I suspect that if the NY 23 Republican Party leaders had chosen someone the right was happy with, they would have won the seat easily.

Republican Primaries
There will be primaries against a number of moderate Republicans.  Some of those races, like Charlie Crist and Mark Rubio in Florida, will be high profile battles between the right wing and more moderate voices.  That could increase the negative public perception of the Republican Party and give Democrats a chance. But to take advantage of their in-fighting, Democrats will have to have good candidates running good campaigns.  If they are incumbents, they may have to run flawless campaigns.

So I think the early lessons are, this cycle the independents will vote for a right wing conservative Republican against a weak (Deeds) or damaged (Corzine) Democrat.  Second, moderate Republican voters don’t seem to have any problem voting for a right winger either (Christie, McDonnell) when there is no primary fight.  And third, the primary fights will only help Democrats when they have a good candidate (Owens) who runs a very good campaign.

Other Races
In other races, California Lt Governor John Garamendi easily won the special election to replace U.S. Rep Ellen Taushcer in CA 10.  The District has an 18 point Democratic advantage and was never at risk.  Mayor Bloomberg, however, after spending $90 million of his own money and outspending his opponent 14-1, barely won re-election with 51%.  Voters think he is doing a good job as mayor but were upset that he pushed through a change in the law to allow himself to run for a third term.  Turn out in NYC was lower than at any time in decades.

Bottom line is that core Democratic voters need a reason (and a candidate) to turn out for or else they simply won't vote.