Blue Tsunami in Oregon: Election Winners, Losers and Numbers

This is the diary I had hoped to be able to write Wednesday, but with the closeness of the Smith-Merkley US Senate race was happy enough to write a diary talking about the reasons why Merkley would win, as he indeed has.  This diary serves as my review of the Oregon campaign, in what can, without a doubt, be described as the best cycle for Oregon Democrats and other progressive organizations in my lifetime.  All of our goals were met and we beat back every single bad ballot measure to boot.

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/sh…

The Election by the Numbers:

Note: These numbers are still not completely final due to the delay in counting ballots in some counties (which was due to the extra-long ballot necessitated by the high number of ballot measures among other factors).

Total Number of Oregonians Who Voted: 1.835 million or 84%.

Highest Turnout County by %: Wallowa-90%.

Lowest Turnout County by %: Umatilla-79%.

Number of Counties won by Kerry (who won by 5%): 8.

Number of Counties won by Obama: 12.

Obama’s Margin of Victory (which will go higher as the last urban ballots are counted): 16%.

Number of Oregon House Seats Won by the Democrats: 36 (+5).

Number of Oregon House Seats Won by the Republicans in Multnomah County: 0.

Number of Oregon House Seats Won by the Republicans in either the Eugene or Portland metro areas: 3, all in outer Portland suburbs.

Number of Ballot Measures Proposed by groups other than the legislature: 8.

Number of them that passed: 0 (All 4 of the Legislature’s measures passed).

How did I do?:

My final projections were pretty well spot on in most cases this year.  Here is my record:

Statewide and Congressional Campaigns: 100%, I correctly called every single one, although to be honest except for Smith/Merkley none were close.

Ballot Measures: 11/12 correct, I thought Measure 61 would pass but with less votes than Measure 57, and it actually failed outright.  I thought Measure 65 would be a lot closer than it was (it lost by about 2-1).

State Legislature: Senate 3/3, House 16/18.  I missed 2 house races, both of which were very close.  I projected that Adamson and Eberle would win and neither did.  Forsberg appears headed to a narrow defeat as well, which is unfortunately predicted.

Overall I think I did rather well this year as I nailed virtually every prediction and the ones I missed I didn’t miss by much.

Winners/Losers and Awards:

The final section of this diary is my favorite as I have a bit of fun with the election results and who won and lost as well as hand out some awards.

Big Winners/Losers:

Winner: Barack Obama.  Carrying the state by near-record margins, Obama led the Oregon Democrats to perhaps their best results ever.  Oh and this ad may have put Merkley over the top:

Loser: John McCain.  He never contested the state and it was apparent why.  McCain suffered perhaps the worst defeat ever for a major party candidate in the state, certainly the worst since the 1960s.

Winner: Jeff Merkley and the DSCC.  Jeff fought his way through a tough primary and won the day by unseating Republican Gordon Smith.  He did it, in no small part, thanks to the DSCC which poured more into this race than any other race in the country.

Loser: Gordon Smith, Freedom’s Watch and the NRSC.  Despite their best efforts to lie to Oregonians and mislead them into thinking Smith is a moderate, they failed this time.  At times it even seemed that the more Smith and his allies spent on negative ads, the worse they did.  This is not to say that Merkley and our side did not run negative ads because we did but theirs seemed to backfire.

Electoral Trends:

Winner: The 36 county strategy.  Although they didn’t win everywhere, Oregon Democrats surged to near record performances across the state.  They won their first state legislative seat east of the Cascades since the 1990s and basically eliminated the Republican party’s presence in Portland and Eugene.

Loser: Fake moderate Republicans.  From Gordon Smith to John Lim to Jim Torrey and beyond, Oregon Republicans who claimed to be moderates were roundly defeated by Democrats in virtually every case.  Proving that Oregonians can indeed see beyond the hype.

Interest Groups/Endorsers:

Winner: Oregon SEIU.  Perhaps the biggest winner in the state among all the unions was the Oregon SEIU as it helped ensure a majority favorable to their concerns and helped Defend Oregon defeat all the nasty ballot measures to boot.

Loser: Big Business.  The Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check Unionization) was passed in Oregon last year and despite the best efforts of big business to elect candidates who would oppose it, they failed.  Oregon is a pro-worker and pro-union state and shall remain so at least for now.

Winner: Barbara Roberts.  I so love our former Governor and honestly its hard not to.  Barbara still clearly has a lot of political power as all of the persons she endorsed and measures she took positions on went the way she hoped.

Loser: Kevin Mannix and Bill Sizemore.  They go a combined 0 for 7 in the ballot measures this year and only one of them, Measure 64, was even close.  Back to the drawing board you morans!

The Media:

Winner: Tim Hibbits.  Oregon’s top political analyst called the Senate race for Merkley Tuesday night and turned out, as usual, to be spot on.  In more than 900 races in which Hibbits has made a projection, he has been wrong exactly twice.

Loser: The Oregonian.  For endorsing Gordon Smith because Merkley’s win would give the Dems too much power.  Really, that’s a bad thing?  Well the streak continues as the Oregonian has not endorsed a winning Republican in a major race in a long time.

Awards:

Biggest Surprise in a major election: Measure 65’s stunning rejection by a 2-1 margin.  I thought it would fail but that it would be very close.  I’m happy to be wrong.

Best Victory Celebration: A crowd in Portland spontaneously breaking out into singing the national anthem after finding out Obama won.

Best political ad: Obama’s ad for Merkley (see above).

Worst Political ad: The Hot Dog ad by the NRSC:

Most disgusting political ad: Merkley supports rapists by Smith’s campaign:

Best victory speech: Merkley’s victory speech in the US Senate race, which I just saw delivered at Portland State.  Waiting a few extra days for it didn’t make it any less sweeter when Sen.-elect Merkley, flanked by his wife, his mother and current Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), walked into the hall packed with lots of local supporters in a space designed for maybe 50-75 on a typical day.  Merkley spoke about the issues that matter both to Oregon and the nation and how he would be a new progressive voice for this state.

A key quote from Merkley’s speech:

Speaking at PSU’s Urban Center, Merkely said he couldn’t be “more honored” than to be serving with veteran Democrat Ron Wyden in the U.S. Senate and said that it is now “time for a problem solving, bi-partisan approach” to the many issues facing the country

Link to article about the victory: Jeff Merkley accepts his role as Oregon’s newest senator

Best-run campaign: Jeff Merkley (US Sen.).  One should not underestimate what Jeff and his team just accomplished as they unseated Gordon Smith, who many even in Democratic circles thought was untouchable.  Kudos to his staff and the army of supporters who carried the day.

Worst-run campaign: Mike Erickson (OR-5).  Not so much for how he ran the campaign as for how he reacted to all his personal scandals.  Whether it was taking his girlfriend to an abortion doctor and lying about it or taking a trip to Cuba supposedly for humanitarian reasons and instead partying the night away, Erickson in a textbook example of how NOT to run a campaign.  Yet he is utterly clueless about this and has, in fact, already been rumored to be running again in 2010.

Most-misleading campaign: Both sides of the Measure 64 campaign, the union payroll deduction.  Both sides stretched the truth more than a bit when it came to this proposed measure.  The yes folks overstated the danger of having public employee unions involved in politics while the no die claimed a far wider impact from this law than was likely (stifling the Oregon Food Bank among others supposedly).  Still, the good guys on the no side won, and I am very happy they did.  This criticism is not about their position but some of the ads they ran during this campaign.

Best-run campaign in a losing cause: Michele Eberle (OR House).  Came within inches of unseating a man with a long history in this state, Rep. Scott Brunn.  She may well win again if she runs in two years but given that this seat was not on anyone’s target list two years ago, the fact that she came this close says a lot.  Honorable mention to Jessica Adamson in Wilsonville as well.

Politician I am most happy to see lose: Gordon Smith.  After the misleading attack ads in what was without a doubt the most negative campaign in Oregon history, I really wanted to win this one.  We did, so I’m happy.

Let me know what you think.