Well, my sterling record for predicting elections in my home country continues to shine: I blew another one. Surprisingly, the long line of detractors has not come to my comments section – a humbling reminder of anonymity, I guess.
Anyhow, there are a few things we can glean from this result. Among them:
The Republican recovery is uneven: The numbers in Northern Virginia showed a dramatic shift towards the GOP – even when the usual special election unpredictability is taken into consideration. Here, by contrast, things were remarkably stable: the results were a near-carbon copy of Obama’s 51% in this district last November.
That said, Republicans are clearly doing better nationwide. Rasmussen‘s Congressional ballot poll has been dead-even for two weeks, and the week prior saw only a one-point deficit for the GOP.
We could be seeing a Republican surge in the old Bush states (Virginia and Georgia), or just the states with a heavy recent shift (Virginia). Given the still-very-underreported fact that 1 in 6 Bush-2004 voters pulled the lever for Obama, this shouldn’t be too surprising. One other piece of evidence to back this theory is recent New York polls showing Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General and leading Democrat in the race for Governor, is waxing Rudy Giuliani.
However, if the “blue” states remain as Democratic as they were five months ago, Democrats running in purple or red states could be in deep, deep trouble.
The old Republican advantage in absentee ballots is gone: So far, only one region (Fairfax County, VA) has reversed the Dems’ absentee edge in 2008. The rest (to the extent we have data) have merely confirmed it. This means the GOP has to pay more attention to the absentees, or give themselves a bigger Election Day cushion.
November 2009 may not tell us as much as we thought: With only two states having statewide elections, it would have been difficult to read the tea leaves anyway. Given Virginia’s battleground status and the deep unpopularity of Governor Corzine in New Jersey, the elections could tell us less than the 1993 results did. That won’t stop everyone from making assumptions, but Republicans in Massachusetts shouldn’t be expecting to elect Congressman based solely on Chris Christie, Steve Lonegan, or Bob McDonnell’s performance.
On the flip side, T-Mac, Creigh, and Brian shouldn’t be ordering drapes for the Governor’s mansion based on Scott Murphy’s win either.
Some thoughts on the race and what it means.
[...] I suspect the Dems will look at this and the results in New York’s 20th as a sign that their ascendancy is continuing. Given the 2009 elections everywhere else and [...]