Democrats bruised at the polls

What happened

Republicans rebounded sharply from their 2008 defeat this week, winning governors’ seats in New Jersey and Virginia in an election marked by crosscurrents. Virginia Republican Bob McDonnell won 62 percent of independents in crushing Democrat Creigh Deeds, 59 percent to 41 percent. In New Jersey, Republican challenger Chris Christie ousted Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine, 49 percent to 45 percent. Exit polls in both states revealed that voters remain generally positive about President Obama personally, but have soured on the economy. The president, who invested substantial time and resources campaigning for Corzine, proved to have little influence there or in Virginia, despite his victory in those states one year ago. “Americans want our presidents to succeed,” said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. “But the president’s policies are very unpopular, and they are hurting Democrats.”

The news was not all good for Republicans, however. In New York state’s 23rd Congressional District, seen as a bellwether race, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman was beaten by Democrat Bill Owens, despite strong financial and campaign support from conservative activists from around the country, including Sarah Palin. Conservatives had cast the race as a challenge both to the White House and to Republicans they deem insufficiently conservative. The activists succeeded last week in driving a moderate Republican nominee from the race. “If there is a big backlash against Democrats, why did we just [win a seat] in a district that hasn’t elected a Democrat in 150 years?” said White House senior advisor David Axelrod.

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What the editorials said

Obama’s “machine has just hit a significant speed bump,” said The Wall Street Journal Online. Independent voters helped put Obama in office last year, leaving the GOP “flat on its back.” But in the swing state of Virginia and deep blue New Jersey, disillusioned “independent voters swung heavily to the GOP” this time. If Washington Democrats don’t change their tax-and-spend agenda, they’ll soon join New Jersey’s Corzine in retirement.

Neither the New Jersey nor the Virginia gubernatorial race was truly a referendum on Obama, said TheEconomist.com. Local issues, such as New Jersey’s property taxes and Virginia’s battered economy, were the big factors. Still, the troubling news for Democrats is that they—and not George W. Bush—now “own the economy.” The bad news for Republicans is that the intra-party war that broke out in upstate New York isn’t going away.

What the columnists said

The most “ominous” development for Democrats is that the excitement Obama created last year is waning, said Dan Balz in The Washington Post. In New Jersey and Virginia, the youth vote was half of what it had been in 2008, and black turnout dropped. Heading into the 2010 midterm elections, it’s Republicans “who have the more energized constituency.” That fact has to alarm Democratic congressmen from swing districts, said Michael Barone in The Washington Examiner. After this week’s election, it will be far tougher “for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to round up the needed 218 votes” to pass health-care legislation.

It certainly would have helped Democrats if Obama had signed a health-care bill in August, said Marc Ambinder in TheAtlantic.com. But “the White House’s time horizons are longer” than those for gubernatorial and congressional candidates. With a bad economy and the White House pursuing its own goals, “it’s going to be frustrating for Democrats in the short term,” but “Obama’s building a strong re-election coalition in 2012.”

That all depends, said John Judis in TheNewRepublic.com. Voters will punish Democrats if the recovery is anemic, without much job creation. Both of the successful GOP gubernatorial candidates provided a road map for beating Obama and the Democrats—not by tacking hard right, but by appealing to moderates and independents. “Christie is a moderate, and McDonnell at least pretended to be.” Similar Republican candidates could do well in 2010 and 2012. But if Republicans take their marching orders from doctrinaire extremists such as Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, “Democrats don’t have to worry.”