Team SSP is calling it a night, but we’ll put up one last open thread for all you night owls and early-risers. Feel free free to have at it in the comments, either discussing results from your favorite downballot race that we failed to notice tonight, or to engage in that time-honored swingnut pastime of telling us What It All Means.
67 thoughts on “Election 2009 Results, Thread No. 5”
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Okay, enough pun snarking. In other news,…
* NJ-Gov: Seems like polls were about right in predicting a narrow Christie victory.
* VA-Gov: What the hell went wrong here? He was supposed to be the BEST of the three candidates.
* NY-23: Dewey defeated Truman again, I see.
* ME-Q1: This is the only one that I’ve found disappointing, apart from miscellaneous downballot losses.
Rich People get Roll’d!
Corzine, Hoffman, Brown (HOU Mayor), and Blommie (almost)
BTW, what was Jimmie Fallon doing on stage behind Bloomberg during the acceptance speech? I never liked that guy who ruins his sketches by laughing at the camera. The Roots can stay on Late Night, though.
I don’t know what to make of this.
I was in Maine three weeks ago, in Bar Harbor, and while I was there, I helped out on No on 1. They were incredibly optimistic.
But when I talked to people, there was a problem. For those (and there weren’t many) who supporting the rejection of the law, they couldn’t wait to vote and couldn’t wait to tell me how much they couldn’t wait to vote. For those who opposed it, I can count on my fingers the number of them for whom voting to upheld marriage equality was even on their radar screen. There was a big enthusiasm gap among voters. On top of that, most of the people I talked to who were supporting marriage equality were annoyed with my calls or with my stopping them in the street. One person even snapped at me saying “If I hear from you people one more time, I’m going to vote yes. This isn’t a big deal for me either way you know”
Still, there was countless No on 1 signs all over Mount Desert Island. I thought to myself ‘Yes has no ground game here, No is going to win”
Then on my way back to New York, I took the scenic coastal route, driving through Bucksport, Searsport, Boothbay Harbor, Belfast, Camden and then on to Augusta…Yes on 1 signs outnumbered No signs 5-1 on the ride home. They had a huge presence off the island. My heart sunk, my optimisim faded.
In the end, civil rights coem through when the people who need them fight for them, but gays are such a small part of the population, they have a hard time winning battles against the straight majority, who either oppose their rights or are indifferent. The latter is the problem. How do you get indifferent people to come out and get enthusiastic about something that bears no effect on them whatsoever?
Until we solve that riddle, we will not win.
It’s just truly amazing. They are incapable of learning. On the one hand, no matter what the result, the conclusion is always the same. But the better way to look at it is, doing the same looney thing over and over and expecting a different result the next time you do it is the definition of insanity.
God bless the lil’ buggers.
I’m really not terribly surprised. Maine is the New England state least affected by outside immigration from other, more urban states, so their politics are way more traditionalist than one might expect for New England in the early 21st century. Sure, they voted for pot and taxes, but those are two things ingrained in their political tradition, like voting for two so-called moderate Republican Senators in an era when New England moderates are basically dead and gone. Unfortunately, homophobia is also a very ingrained part of Maine traditional culture, and being as rural as it is, it’s going to take a lot of time before that changes. (I’ve known too many old Truman Democrats from Maine who hated the modern GOP but were also bigoted as all hell against not only homosexuality but black people as well.)
Oh well. At least we exploded some Texas tea/carpetbagger heads in NY-23, Christie is almost certainly a one-term Governor, Constantine won King County Executive, and I-1033 crashed and burned. ME-Init does sting a little, and my condolences definitely go out to any SSP’ers who live in Virginia, but other than that, it could’ve been much worse.
I remember a few months ago when I posted a comment saying how terrible the VA-Gov race was going because of all the focus on scandals and past transgressions instead of discussing the real issues, and I was universally mocked for my opinion by the people here saying I didn’t understand the realm of electoral politics.
Looking at McDonnell’s blowout last night, I feel somewhat vindicated that I was right. Deeds’ focus on McDonnell’s 20 year old thesis made his campaign one of the lousiest in recent memory. McDonnell coyily played his conservative credentials to one crowd and posed as a moderate to another crowd, and he focused on issues like transportation and health care. Looking at Deeds and the low voter turnout, I’m not sure his own supporters voted for him. In comparison to Obama’s campaign, Deeds was a dud. There was nothing to inspire voters to come out and vote for him, even inserting Obama last minute didn’t work. In retrospect, Terry McAuliffe may have done better; at least I know that guy is charismatic.
It’s ironic that Obama, the leader of the Democrats, brought in a new way of campaign which works that other Democrats did not embrace. Instead, they choose to fall back on the old way of division and negativity. Oh well…
1. Anti-incumbent mood
Of the nine (potentially ten) seats that changed hands last night, only one of them was an open seat. Two vulnerable open seats in Fairfax were held by the Democrats despite the losses among the current delegation.
2. Death of the SWVA Democrat
Dan Bowling (D) won a special election in the 3rd district in 2006 by a 60-28-9 margin. The 3rd district had voted for Deeds by a 6-point margin, which (obviously) was not the case. Bowling apparently thought he could cruise to re-election, but the Republicans realized his weakness, and outspent him 2-1, leading to a crushing 14-point loss. The two Democratic Delegates left in SWVA, Bud Phillips of the 2nd and Joe Johnson of the 4th, would likely have gone down as well had the Republicans recruited strong challengers. Republicans will be fools not to contest these two races in 2011.
3. It could have been worse
In the 10th, House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong (D) held off a challenge by a complete unknown by only a 57-43 margin. A stronger Republican here could easily have knocked him off.
In the 12th, Jim Shuler (D) held off a nobody Independent (who literally spent no money) by a 66-34 margin. Who knows what a Republican could have done here. Granted, this district is one of the few where Deeds would have had coattails — it’s Deeds’ old House district, and it stretches from Blacksburg up to Bath County.
In the 41st, two-term incumbent Dave Marsden (D) held off Republican Kerry Bolognese, who Marsden outspent 4-1, by just over 200 votes.
Democrats picked up the 52nd district, which the Republicans had essentially conceded up until late September, when it became apparent that they still had a chance here. A last-minute flood of money to Republican Rafael Lopez was not enough to salvage a win here, and Luke Torian (D), who had been a heavy favorite the entire race, limped across the finish line with a 52-48 margin. Had the Republicans invested here earlier, they could have held the seat.
Similarly, Republicans more or less gave up on the 87th, where Paula Miller (D) basically had little challenge from John Amiral (R), despite Amiral dumping a bunch of his own money into the race at the last minute. Her 57-43 victory is her largest margin of victory since she was elected in 2004.
Finally, in the 99th, Al Pollard (D) scraped by teabagger favorite Catherine Crabill (R), who raised only $11,000 and was so polarizing, when she was nominated, at least one county’s Republican delegation voted to have no nominee. A serious Republican challenge would probably have won here, and look for Pollard to be on the top of the Republicans’ hit list in 2011.
4. Don’t take the suburbs for granted
After 2008, many Democrats were crowing about how Northern Virginia had turned irrevocably blue. This is not the case. McDonnell won big in Loudoun and Prince William, and now Luke Torian is the only Democratic Delegate that represents part of either of those counties. Prince William incumbent Paul Nichols lost, as well as Loudoun incumbent Dave Poisson. Chuck Caputo, whose district is mostly in western Fairfax but has a little of Loudoun, also lost.
5. Wasted money
Democrats spent over a quarter million dollars targeting Bob Marshall, who ended up winning with over 60% of the vote.
Over $100,000 was spent trying to defeat Danny Marshall. He won 64-36.
In the 42nd, the Democrats spent over $400,000 to defeat Dave Albo. He won 57-43.
Democrats gave nearly $100,000 in Jeannette Rishell’s quixotic third bid to beat Jackson Miller in the 50th district. She lost by 25 points.
I never understood why Democrats were up on Thomas Shields’ chances in the 73rd. They gave him over $100,000. He lost 62-38.
How long did I talk about Dagget’s supporting falling and being well below double digits? This entire time. And then I go and predict 11% for him in the predictions thread because I wouldve stuck out like a sore thumb otherwise with my predictions.
damn damn damn.
I know many of us were feeling pretty pessimistic about Nov. 3rd, and there were plenty of predictions thrown out there that Democrats might go 1 – or even 0 – for 4.
But did anyone think that our 1 out of 4 would be Bill freakin’ Owens? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if nobody won a babka this year…
Democrats at least still control the Virginia State Senate (although with the almost switch of one Democrat earlier who knows what might happen after yesterday’s election).
If Democrats can take Cuccinelli’s open senate seat…
We only lost it by 92 votes in 2007.
if I ignore my home state of Pennsylvania.
Joan Orie Melvin won the state supreme court race, giving Republicans a 4-3 majority and overturning the 4-3 majority that Democrats had just won two years ago. I believe that prior to 2007, Republicans had held a majority on the state supreme court for awhile. I can only hope that somehow the state legislature decides to sidestep a fight and goes for incumbent protection to ensure a Republican state senate and Democratic state house, a la the old New York.
There were four open seats on the superior court (the higher of two intermediate courts). Republicans won 3 of 4 seats. I am not sure of the superior court’s partisan makeup. On a slight positive note, one of the Republicans who won was supported by labor and education groups, so she certainly could’ve been worse.
There were two open seats on the commonwealth court (the lower of the intermediate courts). Republicans won both seats, including a women who played “Battle Hymn of the Republic” on her campaign page and bolded the words “one nation under God” and “judicial activism.” **barfs**
Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl won re-election against weak opponents. While this became a forgone conclusion once his two independent opponents started attacking one another, it further added to my embarrassment when piled on top of who else won last night. The bonus for Luke: his mom promised to take him out for ice cream if he won.
Even in my local borough, the first Democratic mayor in decades (elected in 2005) was ousted by the previous mayor (who had retired in 2005) who gave his supporters deceptive “Re-elect” mayoral signs (which led to both mayoral candidates appearing to be the incumbent) and send out scary letters claiming that “dark clouds” had been forming over our hallowed community for the past four years. The final vote wasn’t even close, as our current mayor, who has been excellent with public works projects and hasn’t raised taxes, was ousted by 20 points. I liked our previous mayor, but his change of heart regarding his retirement was disconcerting, considering how low he felt he had to stoop in a freaking local race. Also, a borough council incumbent was ousted in favor of a guy who just gave me really bad vibes…something about his eyes. The current seven-member council (I believe officially 5 Democrats and 2 Republicans, but the council wasn’t really partisan) was quoted multiple times as saying how well they all got along with each other and how much more effective they felt they’d been in the last several years, so hopefully the new guy doesn’t greatly change the dynamic.
I take heart in Chapel Hill electing its first openly gay mayor, especially so because I will be moving to the Research Triangle in a few years. I take heart in Charlotte once again having a Democratic mayor. I obviously take heart in NY-23, as well as DeDe Scozzafava’s likely entry into the Democratic fold. Washington’s likely quasi-gay marriage victory is also encouraging, to an extent. However, I honestly have had to perform mental jujitsu to separate my local and state races from the rest of the country in order to stay positive.
http://www.nytimes.com/interac…
So, this is apparently how Thompson kept this thing close…
– Democrats came home (Thompson +14).
– He ran much better-than-expected among blacks (T +53) and Hispanics (T +12).
– He kept Bloomberg from running away with self-described moderates (B +8), while holding down a strong majority of liberals (T + 12).
– More voters felt Bloomberg attacked unfairly than Thompson did.
– Thompson garnered 25% of voters who approve of Bloomberg, while Bloomberg carried only 9% of voters who disapprove of his performance.
– Thompson carried voters who approve of President Obama (T +7).
Thompson carried The Bronx (+23) and Brooklyn (+5). Bloomberg carried Manhattan (+15), and for some reason, the NYTimes polling couples Queens and Staten Island, where on average Bloomy had a 15% advantage.
Some other interesting stats…
– Bloomberg won among gay voters (B +3).
– Nearly 1/3 of New Yorkers still consider Bloomberg a Republican.
– The Jewish vote is still safely in Bloomberg’s court (B +53).
– A 12-point gender gap in support for the candidates (Men T +1, Women B +11).
If Corzine had managed to get the vote of every person who voted in the 2008 Presidential primary, he would have been in the lead by a few hundred votes (at 99% reporting).
Rep Weiner correctly suggested last night that perhaps Obama should’ve spent some time on Thompson instead of Corzine. To this, a white house official responded, “”Maybe Anthony Weiner should have manned-up and run against Michael Bloomberg.”
Way to man up and take responsibility for dropping the ball. Seriously, if the WH spend a tenth of the energy they dedicate to bullying liberals in congress on conservadems, they might actually accomplish something.