Tuesday night saw a number of electoral battles that could have serious consequences for the nation at large, let alone our current president. There were two governor races, one in New Jersey and one in Virginia, in which Democrats were defeated, but for different reasons. There was a heated special election for the 23rd District of New York, in which a Democrat won the seat for the first time since the 1870s. There was an unexpectedly close race for the mayor of New York, which saw Michael Bloomberg win an unprecedented third term. And there were, of course, critical ballot initiatives in the great state of Maine.
In New Jersey, the Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine, had been encumbered by high unemployment and corruption across the state; but the major hurdle for Corzine was his favorability ratings, mired in the low 40s months before his reelection campaign even began. Simply put, Corzine could not have won the race if matched against only the Republican Chris Christie, a former prosecutor under President W. Bush.
Corzine's only route to victory was if the Independent Chris Daggett ate a significant chunk of Christie's conservative supporters. In the end, Dagget's rising polls in the state were not reflected in the outcome: Christie won with 49 percent of the vote to Corzine's 44 percent.
Over in the Virginia Commonwealth, Democrat Creigh Deeds faced off against Republican Bob McDonnell, after 80 years of Democratic rule under former governors Mark Warner (now representing Virginia in the United States Senate) and Tim Kaine (now head of the Democratic National Committee). Let me first say that Deeds ran a lousy campaign, failing to rally a coalition which last year voted for a Democratic president for the first time since the 1960s.
Deeds, when asked if he supported Obama's stimulus, demurred; later, when asked if Virginia would opt out of Obama's health care program were Deeds to be elected governor, he balked. McDonnell, on the other hand, ran away from the social conservatism that got him nominated as the Republican candidate for governor, infusing a hopeful pragmatism with fiscal conservatism that proved receptive. In the end, McDonnell crushed Deeds by nearly twenty points, bringing a Republican lieutenant governor and attorney general with him to victory.
What do these races mean for the nation, the two dominant political parties, and President Obama? Simply put, it's hard to tell. Two different narratives have unfolded. One, from the White House, is that these races were about local issues and the poor economy; the other, from the GOP leadership, is that independents are breaking towards Republicans, young and minority voters are not turning out as they did in 2008, and that a Republican comeback is in the works. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Let me mention that both Virginia and New Jersey, which hold their elections for governor in the year following presidential elections, have been won by the party who lost the White House the year before for the past 20 years. History repeated itself last night. Sure, independents broke for the Republican candidates in both states by big numbers, but that doesn't necessarily reflect a repudiation of Obama's policies. What is true is that the Democratic coalition of 2008 simply didn't make it to the polls last Tuesday. Young and minority voters stayed home, while senior citizens kept up. If Barack Obama wants to retain his Democratic majority in the House, he better get his coalition motivated again.
The race to replace former New York Representative John McHugh, now Secretary of the Army, gained national attention over the past weekend. A Republican-held seat for nearly 150 years, the race started off as a sure hold for the moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava against Democrat Bill Owens.
But the Conservative party candidate, Doug Hoffman, quickly rose to fame as notable conservative voices like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck endorsed Hoffman over the National Republicans' choice of Scozzafava. Last weekend, Scozzafava, facing a rising Hoffman and seeing no path to victory of her own, withdrew from the race. The next day, she endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, apparently after pressure from key New York Democrats such as Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer and local Democrats. Last Tuesday, Owens beat out the Conservative Hoffman, taking the seat from GOP hands.
Over the weekend, there was much hoopla in the media over the withdrawal of the moderate Scozzafava. Conservatives and liberals alike were heralding a right-wing conservative take over of the GOP; it spelled doom for moderates like Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, currently running for the Republican nomination for that state's upcoming 2010 Senate race. But, in the end, Hoffman was defeated.
Perhaps this will solidify the right wing's hold over the GOP, but not as much as it would have had Hoffman won. Indeed, his loss should squelch Limbaugh, Beck and Palin's hold over the GOP for the time being. But the race itself is indicative of a principled takeover of the Republican Party, and may spell doom for them in the 2010 elections should they run on a tea-party platform.
Finally, there were the ballot initiatives in Maine. Question 1, which we all know would repeal the state legislature's approval of gay marriage, passed by a vote of 53 percent to 47 percent. Unfortunately, gay marriage has never been approved by voters at the state level. This is a generational issue, as almost every poll has shown, and I have no doubt that gay marriage will come about in this country. Question 5, which would extend medical marijuana in Maine, passed with over 60 percent of the vote. That result speaks for itself.
What does last night mean in the long run? The Democrats picked up two House seats and are that much closer to passing Nancy Pelosi's robust public option in the House of Representatives. They can now lose up to 40 members of their caucus and still pass a bill.
Voters in Virginia and New Jersey kicked out the governing party, keeping with historical tradition, on the backs of a disgruntled independent vote. And the race for the 23rd district of New York saw the conservative wing of the GOP lose to the Democrats, in an overwhelmingly Republican district. Senior citizens voted as if it were 2008, while minority and youth voters stayed home. What this all means for President Obama, we'll have to wait to see.
Chris Rowe is a member of the Class of 2010.