And at 11:10pm arrives the email: “DGA Looks Ahead to 2010 Election Cycle.” It was that kind of night for Democrats. Or at least that’s what it looked like a few hours ago, with Chris Christie cruising to an early victory over Jon Corzine in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell whomping Creigh Deeds in Virginia. So I switched over to watch the other “Biggest Loser.” (Shut up, I’m a sucker for human interest, life-changing, before-and-after stories. And they visited the White House this week. It was practically work-related viewing.)
Yet it now looks like Democrat Bill Owens may pull off a win in the special election for New York’s 23rd congressional district. With 64% of polls reporting, he’s up 49-45 over conservative candidate Doug Hoffman. It’s hard to know whether to call that an upset, given that the district is fairly moderate and narrowly backed Obama in 2008. But it certainly suggests that Glenn Beck support and Sarah Palin robo-calls don’t translate into victories everywhere. So Democrats have that to hold onto.
Meanwhile, the gay marriage referendum in Maine, where turnout was incredibly high for an off-year election, is still too close to call.UPDATE: One thought on what to make of NY-23, where Owens’ lead has narrowed but looks like it will hold. I generally think it’s a bit ridiculous to draw conclusions from the results of one or two off-year races, particularly special elections. But it’s possible that what we’re seeing in NY-23 is the continuation of a trend that started a few years ago.
In the lead-up to last year’s presidential election, I spent a fair amount of time in battleground states–and in battleground counties in battleground states. I found the same thing happening in each of them, which didn’t make for scintillating reading but was interesting to observe nonetheless.
Each of them were moderate Republican counties filled with the type of voters who make up NY-23–fiscally conservative, not terribly partisan, not socially liberal but not socially conservative either. And in each, the GOP had moved steadily to the right, running socially conservative candidates whose focus on hot-button issues was off-putting to these moderate voters. This was doubly true in years when the economy was suffering and therefore a major issue–like last year and, again, this year.
The result was a damaging of the GOP brand in each of these counties, with voter registration advantages moving to the Democrats and a fair number of Republicans crossing over on a regular basis to support Democratic candidates as well.