Kyle Bell

Prognosticators out there, particularly conservative ones, will have you believe that last night’s dual election victories by Republican candidates in the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races signal massive losses for Democrats in the 2010 midterms. Certainly it is hard to make the case that an 18 point loss in Virginia and a 3 point loss in New Jersey is a positive if you are a Democrat. It is another thing to leap to the conclusion that the 2010 Congressional races will be a bloodbath for Democrats. Then again, facts can be a pesky thing.

I’d like to make a few observations. The first is one of historical election results. In each election since 1989 in both New Jersey and Virginia, the candidate to win came from the party opposite the person sitting in the White House. I heard someone make the claim that Republicans won New Jersey and Virginia in 1993 and the next year won a majority for the first time in 50 years. The same was true in 2006 for the Democrats after winning both states in 2005. The only problem with that logic? It didn’t hold true in 2001 when Democrats won both states, despite a skyrocketing approval rating for President Bush after 9/11. In fact, Republicans made gains in the 2002 midterms. So what is the correlation when you have data that isn’t consistent? There isn’t one.

Most importantly, exit polls found that voters approve of the job that President Obama is doing in both of these states. Voters in New Jersey give President Obama a 57% approval rating, while voters in Virginia give him a 51% approval rating. Considering the nature of the electorate in these races compared to 2008 where youth turnout was cut in half, as well as substantially fewer minorities, you can see why Democrats lost these races. It has nothing to do with the President and it does not project future results.

The third main race of the night was a special election to replace a Republican that President Obama appointed to be Secretary of the Army. The conventional wisdom before last night was that Republicans would carry the 23rd Congressional District in New York, a rural, upstate district that has not voted for a Democrat since the 1800s. Instead, conservatives across the nation meddled in the affairs of a local race and boosted the candidacy of a far right candidate running as a third party. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Dick Armey and other teabaggers all weighed in, endorsing the Conservative Party candidate over the more moderate Republican Party candidate.

The result? Democrats won the 23rd District and the conservatives somehow claim a moral victory by ousting a moderate Republican that dropped out of the race over the weekend, endorsing the Democrat. If this is the way Republicans are going to conduct themselves in 2010, there is no chance they have at significantly gaining seats. Democrats are already looking to gain at least one House seat in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Delaware where Republican incumbents in districts that Obama carried are running for statewide office. If Republicans decide to take the same game plan that they used in New York 23, moving far to the right, 2010 will indeed be a bloodbath – another Democratic landslide.