Lessons from the 2009 election results
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
11/04/09 3:08 AM EST
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| President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine embrace during a campaign rally for the incumbent at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz) |
My Wednesday Examiner column, written as the 2009 election returns were coming in, stands up pretty well. But let me add some observations written as the course of the elections became clearer.
First, in the governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey, the Democratic candidate ran far behind Barack Obama’s percentages in 2008 and the Republican candidates ran ahead of George W. Bush’s percentages in 2004. The numbers are pretty daunting. In Virginia Creigh Deeds won 41% of the votes, way behind Barack Obama’s 53% in 2008. And in New Jersey Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine won 45% of the votes, way behind Obama’s 57% in 2008.
In contrast, the Republican candidates won higher percentages than Bush won in the recent high-water mark of the Republican party in 2004. Republican Bob McDonnell won 59% in Virginia, well ahead of Bush’s 54%. And Republican Chris Christie won 49%, ahead of Bush’s 46%. On the basis of these numbers you could say—in races where the issues were reasonably congruent though not identical to national issues—that Democrats were performing far below their recent optimal levels and Republicans were performing well above them.
Second, and here I want to credit for this observations longtime Democratic pollster and political analyst Pat Caddell, affluent suburban voters moved sharply toward Republicans in 2009.
Bergen County, New Jersey, a 56%-42% Corzine constituency in 2005, came within a point or two of voting for Christie, and in Virginia McDonnell carried 51%-49% Fairfax County—Republican for years but recently in cultural issues and with an increasing immigrant population Democratic (60%-39% Obama in 2008). I
n addition, Westchester County, New York, voted 58%-42% for a Republican county execctive after voting almost exactly the opposite way, in a race involving the same two candidates, four years before . The Philadelphia suburban counties, increasingly Democratic in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008, voted Republican in a partisan race for the Supreme Court in 2009.
From the 1996 election up through and including 2008., affluent counties in the East, Midwest and West have trended Democratic, largely through distaste for the religious and cultural conservatives whom voters there have seen (not without reason) as dominant in the Republican party. Now, with the specter of higher tax rates and a vastly expanded public sector, they may be—possibly—headed in the other direction. An interesting trend to watch.
Finally, third, what will be the impact of these elections on forthcoming votes in Congress on the Democratic leaddership’s controversial and unpopular health legislation. The Virginia Board of Elections give us some hints when it aggregates the results by congressional district. In the 2008 elections three Democrats captured three previously Republican congressional districts in Virginia, giving Democrats six or the eleven-member delegation.
The results of the gubernatorial election show that at least some of these Democrats are imperiled.
In the 2nd congressional district, where Democrat Glenn Nye beat Republican incumbent Thelma Drake 52%-47%, McDonnell beat Deeds 62%-38%. In the 5th congressional district, where Democrat Tom Perriello beat Republican incumbent Virgil Goode 50.01%-49.85%, or a margin of 727 popular votes, the lowest in the country, McDonnell beat Deeds 61%-39%. In the 11th congressional district, where Democrat Gerry Connally won 55%-43% a district vacated by Republican incumbent Tom Davis, McDonnell beat Deeds 55%-45%. And the southwest, coal-producing “Fighting Ninth,” represented since 1982 by Democrat Rick Boucher, voted 67%-33% for McDonnell.
I cannot imagine that Congressmen Nye, Perriello, Connally and Boucher have not already accessed the websites which have shown the position of their constituents in a contest which, while like all governorship contests has its own specific features, was also in its contrast on issue positions reasonably congruent with those prevailing on national issues. And I can certainly respond with sympathy if any or all of these incumbents responded to these numbers with a two-word comment of which I will relay only the first word which is, “Oh.”
The 2009 election results are certainly not going to make it easy for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to round up the needed 218 votes for Democrats’ health care bills.
