Interpreting the election may be more difficult than even the most seasoned political pundit may be willing to admit. Democrats won huge in New York 23. Republicans won (arguably) even bigger in New Jersey. And both parties fared just about as expected in both Virginia and the California 10th Congressional District Special Election.
Let's take them one by one, with the easy contests first: CA-10 was always going to stay blue. The seat was formerly held for more than a decade by well-known Democrat Ellen Tauscher, who left the post to accept President Obama's appointment as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. John Garamendi- the ultimate winner in the race- was a longtime California officeholder with statewide name recognition running against a first-time candidate. CA-10 was never really in question.
Nor was the Virginia Governor's race, though it received much more coverage because the stakes were so much higher. Virginia is essentially a red state with a recent streak of blue. South of the Mason Dixon line, the Old Dominion state has seen both its Senate seats flip from Republican to Democrat in the last two cycles, has elected back-to-back Democratic Governors, and in 2008 voted for the Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in decades. But even in the bluest of states (like California, which elected Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Massachusetts, which elected Mitt Romney), holding a Governor's mansion in the same party for three straight individuals is a tall order. Compund that with the fact that the economy has sagged in a way that has made it overwhelmingly difficult for all incumbent Governors of both parties, not to mention the presence on the Democratic ticket a candidate who has lost to his current opponent once before (Republican Bob McDonnell defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds to become AG). That's a recipe for disaster, and the polls have been saying it all along: Deeds really never had a shot against Republican Attorney General- and now Governor-elect- McDonnell.
On to New Jersey, arguably the biggest shocker of the night. The surprise comes not from the closeness of the race. Just about everyone expected that. But in the end, former US Attorney Chris Christie's unseating of Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine is a David and Goliath story. Corzine- a former Goldman Sachs executive- spent $62 million of his own money when he ran for the Senate back in 2000. In 2005, he ran for Governor, spending another $38 million. This time around, Corzine took $22 million from his own coffers. Corzine trailed in polls for almost the entire election, but closed the gap in the final weeks- even pulling ahead, according to several polls. For Christie to achieve a 5-point margin nonetheless is astounding, and truly commendable from an electoral standpoint.
Now, if there is any indication that Republicans are in better shape than they were in '06 and '08, New Jersey is it (not Virginia). Corzine had every opportunity- if not advantage- to win, but still did not. But the voters' rejection of Corzine was of his executive management. That's far different from a national legislative referendum.
New York is a perfect example of why: in a district that had been held by a Republican for the last century, Democrats managed to actually gain a seat that they probably had no business winning. And the GOP didn't even have a candidate in the election, after the cicrcus that forced out Republican Dede Scozzofava in favor of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. If that doesn't suggest that the national Democratic brand is still strong, it at the very least underscored just how bad the Republican brand is ailing.
So who did better? You can't look for an answer to that question in the contests where the two parties performed as they had essentially been expected. Instead, you have to ask which party did more while the deck was stacked against them. Democrats had all the chips in New Jersey, but lost. Republicans had all the chips in New York 23, but lost.
All in all, Republicans won the bigger contests today, and for that reason have to be congratulated: they won the night. But it's almost certainly premature to apply these results to the potential outcome in 2010. Both sides exhibited very strong- and more importantly, very weak- points in their respective armors. The real race will be to see who can patch those up over the next 364 days (until November 2, the date of the Congressional midterm).
