By Dan Gilgoff

The parties parse a split decision at the ballot box

Were Republican wins in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races a rebuke to the Obama administration at the one-year mark? Depends on whom you ask.

"I don't think you can read a lot nationally into what happened in two states," says Cornell Belcher, President Obama's pollster in the 2008 presidential contest. "The issues in those states were not the issues we fought on last year."

Many top Republicans disagree. "There's been a lot more government intervention in healthcare and in the federal takeover of certain companies since last year," says David Winston, the pollster for the Republican congressional leadership. "Voters rejected that and went with Republicans."

There may be truth to both interpretations. For Democrats and left-leaning independents, the races, which saw governor's mansions in the Garden State and Old Dominion slip from Democratic hands, were largely local affairs. It's one reason so many who'd turned out for Obama last year stayed home on Election Day, while Republicans and conservative-minded independents stormed the polls. Both trends contain warnings for Obama and the Democrats ahead of next year's midterm elections, while the success of a Democrat in a New York State special election last week provided a cautionary tale for the GOP. With the parties drawing different lessons from the results, the biggest near-term effect may be more partisan gridlock in Washington.

Overwhelming majorities of voters in Virginia, where Bob McDonnell won the open seat, and in New Jersey, where Chris Christie defeated incumbent Jon Corzine, said Obama wasn't a factor. According to exit polls, half of Virginia voters approved of Obama's job performance, despite McDonnell's 20-point margin over Creigh Deeds. In New Jersey, even more voters expressed approval of Obama. "It's important to realize that this was about state issues," says Mike DuHaime, Christie's chief political adviser.

Corzine's approval rating in the days leading up to the election was 37 percent, reflecting a battered state economy, high property taxes, and a federal corruption probe that snared dozens of Democratic New Jersey politicians earlier in the year. In Virginia, Deeds was widely seen as an ineffectual candidate against the polished McDonnell. And both states have for decades consistently elected governors who represent the party opposite the president's.

And yet the warning signs for Democrats are undeniable. Independents in New Jersey and Virginia broke for the Republican gubernatorial candidates by a 2-to-1 ratio, a big shift from last year. "If that happens in 2010, it will be an awesome year for Republicans," says Winston. But political analysts stress that independents who voted last week were more conservative than those who turned out last year. "There was some overlap, but these are two different groups," says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

A bigger problem for Obama and the Democrats is that so much of their base stayed home last week. Turnout in Virginia was down by nearly half compared with last year, when Obama became the first Democrat to win the state in a presidential election since 1964. Key segments of the Obama coalition, including young people and African-Americans, were scarce. Voters under 30 accounted for 10 percent of Virginia voters, down from 21 percent in 2008. Conservatives, meanwhile, surged from a third of the Virginia electorate last year to 40 percent.

The White House sought to blame the Virginia loss on Deeds, a state lawmaker, as part of its larger argument that the outcome had little to do with Obama. "The surge voters who helped turn red states blue were Obama voters, not necessarily Democratic voters," says Belcher. "We have to spend a lot of time cultivating them into conventional Democrats. When we don't, we're missing an opportunity."

But for Democrats to avoid a replay in next year's midterms, they need to figure out how to reactivate their base. In deep-blue New Jersey, three trips by President Obama weren't enough. "Corzine actually lost votes in the areas where the Democratic registration surge [of 2008] was biggest," compared with his 2005 race, says Peter Woolley, director of Fairleigh Dickinson University's Public Mind poll.

To fire those voters back up, Obama and Democrats in Congress will need to deliver on campaign promises like reforming healthcare and passing a climate bill, while hoping that the economy rebounds. "Last night was a reminder that Democrats still carry the burden of proof in showing that we can restore and save jobs," Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said in a call with reporters after the election. "We still need to show we can govern."

But the strong conservative turnout has emboldened Republicans to stop Obama from expanding government. "I would suggest that property taxes are a national issue," says Winston, referring to New Jersey's gubernatorial race. "It's a cost-of-living thing--people are tired of paying more." That could translate into greater GOP opposition to an expensive healthcare reform bill and to the new regulations of a climate plan. The party is also betting that last week's Republican dominance among independents will scare dozens of swing-district Democratic lawmakers from getting behind such programs.

Indeed, Christie and McDonnell showed that Republicans could effectively co-opt Obama's 2008 change message by campaigning against the party in power with a small-government theme. Christie won two thirds of New Jersey voters who said the ability to bring change was the top quality they wanted in a candidate. Taking a page from Obama's playbook, McDonnell featured Democratic backers in his ads and dubbed his final spot "Hope."

Those kind of conciliatory themes were absent from the Republican push in the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District. Accusing Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava of being too liberal, national conservatives pressured her to leave the race just before Election Day and organized intensely for Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. But Democrat Bill Owens won, knocking the seat out of GOP control for the first time in a century. Conservatives blamed the GOP establishment for embracing Scozzafava in the first place, raising Democratic hopes for Republican infighting in House races next year. But last week's results suggest that Democrats will need to do more than hope that the conservative base sours on the GOP in 2010. They'll need to give their own base a reason to turn out.

Reader Comments

The big question for me is whether the dampening numbers are the result of too much Democratic success, or too little. Let's say Democrats succeed in passing health care reform, cap and trade, and a new unemployment-targeted stimulus package. Let's say the GDP continues to grow and that unemployment declines. Will this hurt Democratic chances in moderate districts (due to fears of the Democratic agenda), or will it improve their chances by showing that Democrats have what it takes to get important legislation passed? I have no idea. But I do know this. I will be exceedingly grateful if Democrats stay the course and get the job done.

Comment by Mark H. Moulton of CA

 

Well the Democrats haven't made any change so what do they expect? Voters are grasping at straws. I would definitely prefer left-wing change over right-wing change, but Democrats are blowing their chance by allowing the banks to control their every move. They aren't standing up to unelected power. Working-class people are headed straight for the poor house no matter who's in "power" because the people with real authority are private interests and aren't subject to the will of the electorate anyway.

Comment by Hilary of CA

 

I'm a staunch independent. I believe that by being an independent I (along with other independents) make a candidate 'work' for the vote as oppose to simply 'expect' it because I'm a member of a certain party. After going through the Bush years, it is very doubtful I'll be voting for any GOP candidates until they show they can think and speak for themselves. Currently, the vast majority of Republicans simply regurgitate the party line, which doesn't cut it for me.

Comment by Mark of MA

 

Forget healthcare and cap and trade. Everything comes down to how the economy is doing next year. If unemployment is still close to 10 percent, the Democrats will suffer losses to the Republicans. Remember Obama promised that the stimulus package would limit unemployment to a max of 8 percent. Soon we will hear "Obama Lied" just as we heard "Bush Lied" when no WMD's were found in Iraq. Clinton beat the first Bush due to the economy. That Bush was very popular a year before the election due to the success of the Gulf War. But the economy tanked and then Bush lost. The sad thing is that we have no viable alternatives to the Democrats or Republicans. So we blame whomever is in power, especially when one party controls the presidency, house and senate. The last time we had balance in the federal government was from 1994 to 2000 when Clinton was president and the Republicans controlled the House and Senate. This arrangement forced more centrist policies to be adopted. The public is never comfortable when one party controls everything because policies then move either too far right or too far left for many of the voters.

Comment by Bob of TX

 

Voters' (especially independents) political opinions can change very often depending on the "big" issues at the present time. Right now, many people disagree with the healthcare reform issue for example. A lot can happen between now and next November, and these polls may look completely different. Obama hasn't even been in office for a full year. Polls are bound to be both in favor and against Democrats many more times during his term.

Comment by Sally S. of DE

 

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