Being back home in the Midwest is always grounding. The most classic moment was a conversation in a restaurant with someone who was expressing anger at all incumbents and both parties who said to me "nobody is on our side."
That was the theme of yesterday's big day of political news. Three more establishment candidates in both parties were either beaten outright or forced into a runoff. More incumbents going down. Insurgents on the rise everywhere.
And speaking of being everywhere, the irony patrol must be utterly exhausted. While incumbents and establishment politicians are being slaughtered in every region and both parties, in conventions and primaries, politicians continue to make fools of themselves. What was Richard Blumenthal thinking? What was Mark Souder thinking? Oh, wait, thinking wasn't involved. Having an affair with a staffer who works with you on promoting abstinence-only videos is like something out of an Elmore Leonard novel, except funnier. But the irony award for the day doesn't even go to Souder, as tempting as that is: it goes to Mitch McConnell. As his hand-picked protégé was going down in flames to anti-establishment, anti-TARP bailout tea partier Rand Paul, McConnell was leading the Republicans in a desperate attempt to keep the financial reform bill from doing anything worse to his poor pathetic friends on Wall Street, all the while crying a river about how Elena Kagan wanted to hurt the free speech rights of big corporations. Politics doesn't get any better than this.
The tea partiers are wreaking their revenge at McConnell because he has deserted them in order to help Wall Street and other big corporations, just as Democratic primary voters are showing their disdain at incumbents at the same time. The bottom line is that voters are asking the age-old question "which side are you on" and finding that to their outrage, none of the politicians seem like they are on the side of angry voters. In order to have a prayer this fall, Democrats have to show the voters- both their base voters in the Rising American Electorate, and the swing voters in the working class who still don't have good jobs- that they are fighting for regular people, not the elite. When the Wall Street bailouts did not produce jobs as promised, voters' attitudes got set at the outrage level, and they still haven't been reset. It is time for Democrats to show which side they are on.
One friend of mine said to me this morning that "it's like most of our Democrats can't seem to read a poll." The New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections. The Massachusetts special election. The Utah Republican party conventions. The Mollohan party upset in West Virginia. Yesterday's results. How many wake-up calls do politicians need?
The two major problems that Democrats face in the 2010 elections are:
Voters who supported Democrats in 2008, but who are shifting toward Republicans (or other parties) in 2010;
Voters who supported Democrats in 2008, but who will not vote in 2010.
Determining which of these problems is most severe will help determine Democratic strategy in not only the 2010 elections, but in the legislative season leading up to those elections. Should Democrats appeal more to a progress-leaning base unimpressed by Democratic accomplishments so far, or should they turn toward a conservative-leaning swing vote that is slowly finding Republicans more appealing?
Over at Pollster.com, Charles Franklin looks at the data in New Jersey and Virginia. He concludes that a shift of Democratic-voters toward Republicans was a bigger factor in the Democratic defeats in those states than was the lower turnout among (mostly young) Democrats.
Franklin's conclusions are not entirely convincing, because it is difficult to separate the two variables from each other. For example, the large shift among Independents toward Republicans was partially caused by lower turnout among young, Democratic-leaning Independents. The pro-Republican shift among Independents was not just caused by Independents switching their vote from Democrats to Republicans.
However, even if it is not possible to definitely prove whether lower Democratic turnout or voter shift to Republicans is the main problem facing Democrats, even attempting such a determination may present a false choice. First, both of these problems exist, and so addressing only one is always only a partial strategy. Second, there may well be ways to appeal to both disillusioned voters and to swing voters at the same time.
Too often political analysts look at the electorate in the same way that they look at winning a majority of votes for a piece of legislation in Congress. There is an underlying belief that appealing to progressives will lose conservative voters, and vice versa. However, that is not necessarily the case among voters, for whom delivering on promises, objective economic conditions, and the apparent cultural orientation of politicians are often just as important as abstract ideological considerations.
Obviously, improved economic conditions will be one way to simultaneously appeal to disillusioned voters and to swing voters. There might be other ways as well, including an improved national image in the rest of the world, or even success in major 2010 international sporting events (Olympics and World Cup). Clamping down hard on corruption within your own party couldn't hurt, either. Whatever the best paths might turn out to be, the best strategies will reject an either / or of exciting the base and appealing to swing voters as an unnecessary false choice.
If the unemployment rate was rapidly dropping, real income was increasing, and health care was more affordable, does anyone really think Democrats would be facing any electoral worries whatsoever?
The biggest flaw in the post-election spin is the tendency of politicians and pundits to consider most swing voters ideologically-driven news junkies, instead of the results-oriented, low-information participants in the political process that they are. This paragraph in the Washington Post is a good example of the flawed conventional wisdom emanating from both wings of the Democratic Party:
But moderate and conservative Democrats took a clear signal from Tuesday's voting, warning that the results prove that independent voters are wary of Obama's far-reaching proposals and mounting spending, as well as the growing federal debt. Liberal lawmakers, meanwhile, said the party's shortcoming came in moving too slowly on health-care reform and other items that would satisfy a base becoming disenchanted with the failure to deliver rapid change in government.
Since there are never singular causes to electoral outcomes, there are kernels of truth in both claims. Some voters probably are upset with government spending and deficits. Some Democratic voters did probably drop out of the electorate in 2009 because they are frustrated with the lack of change in governmental policy. However, both viewpoints posit winnable Democratic swing voters, whether those who defect to Republicans or those who defect to their couch, as primarily concerned with the abstract machinations of Congress instead of the economic conditions they face in their daily lives.
A better assumption is that most of these swing voters defected to not-voting or to another party because Democrats are in charge and the economy still sucks. Since it does not appear as though what Democrats have done while in power over the past year has improved the situation in the country, fewer people are willing to vote for Democrats.
When most voters believe their lives are getting better, then the party in power will benefit politically. Ideological abstractions about the size of government or appealing to the base don't matter quite as much. It really is, as Mike argued yesterday, about delivering the goods.
I happen believe that progressive-left policies are the best way to make most people's lives better. Even if you disagree with that assessment, the smart post-election political argument for a governing party should be about what policies they can pass that will improve people's lives, not about how to appeal to voters on a more abstract level.
I haven't yet had a chance to digest all the numbers from yesterday's election, but what is coming through loud and clear from all the analysis I have seen is that the biggest difference by far between the 2008 election results and the 2009 results is simply that the two electorates were radically different.
For as long as I have been in politics (my 30 year anniversary as a full time politico is coming up next year, and I started knocking on doors 10 years before that), I have been hearing some Democratic politicians and operatives dismiss concerns of progressives by saying "Well, what are they going to do, vote for the Republican?" Well, comparing the differences in the electorates in 2008 and 2009 (not unlike the difference between 1992 and 1994 by the way) should destroy that myth completely. In both 2008 and 1992, Democrats won in large part because unusually high numbers of young people, people of color, and unmarried/working class women came out to vote and voted strongly in their favor. In 2009 and 1994, those sectors of the electorate still voted Democratic when they came to the polls, but strikingly high numbers of all those demographic groups just simply failed to vote.
Now it is also true that independent voters turned away from Democratic candidates in NJ and VA, but there is some overlap here. Remember that many registered independents lean heavily toward one party or another. Young, non-white, lower income and female registered independents tend to lean much more heavily toward the Democratic party than older, higher income, white, and male independents. If the kinds of independents showing up to vote are more heavily weighted to the latter categories, as they were yesterday, Republicans will gain from that.
Having said all that, I think we need to be careful about over-simplifying or over-hyping our analysis here.
Since I got back from Maine yesterday, I've been thinking about a few topics- tactics for achieving LGBT marriage equality; how progressive allies organize and operated around elections this year; and where we go from here. This is a piece analyzing some of the successes and failures in operations around the election. Part 2 is here.
1. The No On 1 campaign and LGBT allies. I spent several months working with the campaign and their online operation, including the final few weeks on the ground. I thought the campaign's operations were stellar. The decision-making process was streamlined, our ads were great, the online team and allies who joined us was honed, the fundraising gave us the resources we needed (second-highest total for a ballot initiative in Maine ever), the organizing and donation of resources from allied LGBT organizations was solid, the external organizing of Maine surrogates and supportive religious groups was good.
More than a few people I talked to in or allied with the campaign on the ground expressed problems with the field model- valuing door knocks over contacts; insisting that fundraising as part of a field script continue late in the game despite the fact that we were in amazing shape financially and losing volunteers who were unwilling to fundraise; and a number of other issues. One external allied partner who did field in Prop 8- which, by all accounts, had close to zero effective field operations- were working with the campaign in Maine as well, which may have been a mistake. I was told by one field expert that if turnout is below 45%, we're screwed; if we break turnout above 45%, we're in better shape; and if it's above 55%, they're screwed. Turnout was at 58.5%- a state record for an odd-year election. And we still lost. In two consecutive ballot elections on marriage we've fallen short in part because of field, and that is something serious that needs to be addressed.
2. Undecided voters. I can't give specific numbers, but there was an expectation on the ground that undecideds, which were a significant chunk in polling, would break our way. They ended up almost all breaking towards the Yes side. Whether it was because of our own version of the "Bradley effect" is unclear, but it was a factor.
3. Tunnel vision by progressive allies. I have to say first that the netroots, including you, were incredibly supportive, and I can never thank you and others around the blogosphere enough. There are too many folks to thank.
That said, working in Portland running on no sleep on Monday, the following infuriated me:
(a) A moneybomb for Alan Grayson was launched on Monday, the day before the election (yes, I'm aware OpenLeft participated). Not only was over $500,000 raised for it at the same time as we were frantically raising to counter an opposition media buy, it took up space on other blogs where others could have urged people to GOTV in Maine, and clogged inboxes while we were trying to ask for GOTV help in Maine. Folks will say that they also posted asks for Maine or other races, but they know full well people do not have time to read every single blog post or devote time or money towards every single e-mail blast, and this was not timed well.
(b) Also on Monday, I got an e-mail from the DSCC asking me to give money to "support our Democratic majority". Last I checked, our Democratic majority is being voted on in 365 days. My election was the next day. Which is a higher priority?
(c) Also on Monday, Organizing For America clogged my inbox on Monday with an e-mail titled "Remember" asking me to- get this- "share a brief story about your best memory of the final days of the campaign" in some sort of one-year anniversary celebration. This is the best use of activists' time and attention the day before an election?
I'm not saying these elements would have made the difference between a win and a loss, but online activists do not have a bottomless pit of money and time and attention, and they could have been better used. The "we can walk and chew gum at the same time" only works if there is enough gum to go around. That's the same stupid rationale that gave us the National Equality March, another suck of people's time and money in a limited resource environment. There is no reason- none- why any of these e-mails could not have been launched on Wednesday, Nov. 4th. In fact, that might have made for better returns. "Last night, progressives got hammered across the country. Contribute to Grayson/the DSCC/OFA to make sure we don't lose key races in 2010".
4. Organizing For America/Obama refusing to help to the point of sucking away resources. In the following ways:
(a) As John Aravosis reported, OFA did a GOTV blast on Monday. Without asking supporters to vote No On 1. But they asked New Jersey voters to support Corzine and Virginia voters to support Deeds. What would a No ask have cost them? Obama already came out against the measure.
(b) Following that, I got back to my supporter housing on Monday night to be told by Alison, who was hosting me, that she received an e-mail asking her to call five voters in not Maine, but New Jersey, which John later reported on AMERICABlog. She's lived in Maine for 17 years and was a prominent local activist. Another person came forward to say they received the same e-mail. OFA refused to comment.
(c) The DNC contributed $25,000 to No On 8 last year. Stonewall Democrats asked them to contribute to No On 1. They refused. As we were doing a frantic fundraiser to up our media buy on Monday- with a goal of, you guessed it, $25,000- it occurred to me it would have been nice to have had that money from them. Nope. Zero.
(d) When asked its position on the initiative, the White House earlier issued issued a tepid, vanilla, "discrimination always sucks" statement without mentioning the words "Maine" "No" "Question 1" or anything that would, you know, actually influence Obama fans in Maine to vote No or support the campaign in a tangible way. What would such a statement have cost him?
The failure of the OFA and Obama to stand up for LGBT families here is just stunning. No, OFA, I will not be sending in my favorite memory of working my ass off to elect an Administration that barely lays a finger to help us win our own elections one year later. Thanks for nothing.
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A lot of people are chiding to not do finger-pointing and laying blame. But there is a difference between blame and asking for better performance. This is not a "progressive allies/bad field/OFA/Obama lost the election for us" piece. I don't believe that they did. But I do think better actions could have been taken. We need to learn from our mistakes, debate strategy in places like OpenLeft, and do better next time in the areas where it's possible.
I've spent the day talking with campaign folks and digesting some of what happened while I was traveling back home. Tonight I'll be on Live From the Left Coast at 6 PM PST/9 PM EST with Angie Coiro with a short preview of some of the problems that existed, both with the campaign and with problematic electoral organizing I saw in our movement and with the Obama administration. Lengthier piece tomorrow here at OpenLeft.
We can sit around and complain that the post-election spin is not properly giving credit to Democratic and progressive victories in the House, in mayoral campaigns, and in many ballot initiatives outside of the painful defeat in Maine. Or, we can realize that in this instance, given the magnitude of the problems facing the country, spin is insignificant compared to the power of the force economic conditions facing the average American.
When you are highly engaged in political news and activism, there is a tendency to overestimate the importance of winning the messaging war. However, there probably isn't a single American who will vote in 2010 based on how well one side or the other messaged after the 2009 elections. The post-election spin is distant, abstract horse pockey compared to the job market, the health care market, the housing market, and other very real economic problems people are facing in their everyday lives.
As Mike wrote this morning, Democratic performance in the 2010 elections will be based on whether Democrats "deliver the goods," aka, the economic improvements they were hired to produce. If economic conditions still suck in 2010, then Democrats are toast no matter what sort of spin or other abstract positioning in which we engage.
We can already see that in the outcome of the elections last night. Democrats were reduced in the two states where they had been in power for eight years during the economic difficulties (New Jersey and Virginia), but were still able to make gains at the federal level (swept the House seats), where they have really only been in charge for one year. The lesson is clear: if you are in power during an economic catastrophe, voters will replace whoever you are with just about anything.
For now, at the federal level at least, voters still blame Republicans. However, that will no longer be the case by 2010. By that point, we will own either the continue economic slump or the ongoing economic recovery. As such, in both political and human terms, it is imperative that there is an substantial improvement in the economic livelihood of average Americans over the next year. To do this, Democrats are not only going to need to make sure that the health care bill contain benefits that will kick in during 2010 (something which Democrats in Congress are increasingly aware of and delivering), but that there can be additional stimulus spending over the next year.
There is no going to be any way to pass a second omnibus stimulus bill. Support simply is not there for it, either in Congress or in the public at large. However, there are two things that can be done (more in the extended entry):
Rather than being an overwhelming sweep, most elections are a mix of good and bad news for each political party and the progressive and conservative movements in our country, and the 2009 off year elections certainly fits into that category.
In the category of the expected, both parties had easy wins: Bob McDonnell won the VA Governor's race in a blowout, while progressive Democrat John Garamendi easily won the Congressional special election to replace Blue Dog Ellen Tauscher.
In the more competitive races, the Republicans won the NJ Gov race, and the Republicans/conservative movement lost the special Congressional election in NY 23rd.
And in the saddest news of the day for progressives, the Maine ballot initiative to strip marriage rights from gays and lesbians narrowly won, although progressives won some other initiative battles like the fight against the highly regressive TABOR initiative in ME.
Republicans, conservative Democrats, and corporate lobbyists are all eagerly lining up to spin the losses in the two Governors' races as evidence that Democrats should become more cautious, go slower with change, pull back on their ambitions. That is the worst possible thing Democrats could do right now. It's a little like conservatives saying that the problem in NY-23 was that Republicans just weren't conservative enough, which you know they will be somehow trying to spin.
Let me try to explain this to the caution captains in my party. There are two reasons we lost those Governors' races yesterday, and they are closely related: voters are in a foul mood, and base Democrats- young folks, unmarried women, minorities- didn't come out.
California Democratic Lt. Governor John Garamendi has been declared the winner in the CA-10 special election. Garamendi will be more progressive than Tauscher, who was the chair of the New Dems when she was in Congress.
So that's two nice upgrades in the House (from McHugh to Owens, and from Tauscher to Garamendi).
Democrats now have 258 seats in the House, up from 257. Whenever a party gains seats in congress, the voters simply are not rebuking that party. With the teabagger vanquished and an upgrade from Tauscher, that is a pretty solid night in the House.
Both Owens and Garamendi will be sworn in before the weekend vote in the House on health care reform. The Committee on Rules in the House posted the bill tonight, which paves the way for a vote in as little as 72 hours. No word yet on amendments, but more on that tomorrow.
Corzine is a real loss, given how few progressives are also Governors. However, with the economy in its current state, it is a difficult time to be an incumbent party.
Maine, as Adam describes below, is looking bleak. Enough to make your blood boil. The only bright side I can offer is that, once again, we are getting closer to winning these elections. Also, once again, we probably won them among voters under the age of 65.
If Democrats--whether Progressive, New Dem or Blue Dog--are going to succeed in 2010, then the objective economic conditions people face in their daily lives have to improve. It is only through a positive turnaround in the daily lives of average Americans that Democrats will continue to gain seats next year.
Update 48: This'll be the final update for the night. Things are, to put it plainly, looking slim. We are in a deep hole by several points, at close to 90% reporting, and most of the rest of the votes yet to come in are from Yes areas. The yes votes started to report and dragged our totals down.
The campaign will be evaluating the race tomorrow and possibly after the absentee votes come in.
I don't really have much else to say except this one hurts, in my gut, a lot.
Update 47: The No On 1 campaign manager, Jesse Connolly, just went down with us to the ballroom and announced that the race is too close to call and they are still counting. The counting could continue well into the morning. There will be no concession or declaration of victory, it appears, tonight. Things are extremely tight and no news media so far has called the race either.
I'm going to take a step away from my laptop and will probably post a final update before going to bed tonight.
Update 46: I spoke with Kate Knox, the campaign's legal counsel. Here is how the recount procedure works:
The campaign has to wait for certification from the Sec of State, which will happen after all absentee ballots come in. In Maine, there is a no-excuse absentee ballot law and she expects there to be a "significant" number of absentees.
The certification takes a maximum of 20 days but is almost always done before then. The campaign has to collect 100 signatures and pay a nominal fee (ranging from a few hundred bucks to $10K but more likely to be a few hundred) depending on how close the vote is.
The recount is statewide, all or nothing. Not challenging individual precincts.
Based on past experience, the recount will take at least a few weeks and likely longer than that.
Update 45: The campaign is now directing staff to call town clerks to get final numbers in and look at our expected numbers there versus what they're reporting. A lot of this leads up to a potential recount if the numbers are way off, but there are still a lot of numbers waiting to come in.
Update 44: Based on what we have and what other news outlets are reporting, now over 60% of precincts are in, including a lot of more rural places, and it's looking like 51-49% against us.
Update 43: After talking with some people here, based on projections from the campaign and looking at the rural numbers starting to trickle in, there is a very, very good chance of a recount, and we're making preparations for that.
Update 42: In Westbrook, a suburb of Portland immediately west, we won 55-45%. It's a big mill town.
Update 41: Let me emphasize for those who are seeing numbers elsewhere- we're at 57% after our more base targets that have nearly all come in- not overall. Overall I can't talk about in detail but they are better for us than 50/50. The rural numbers are starting to come in, though.
Update 40: Places like Brewer went against us, 42-58%- those numbers are starting to come in and pull us down.
Update 39: WMTW-8 TV is reporting 24% of precincts in and deadlocked at 50-50%, 65,452 No, 64,467 Yes. We believe those don't include the Portland absentees yet though, and they lag behind our reporting numbers.
Update 38: TABOR was also on the ballot, and it went down to defeat. Great news.
Update 37: Lull in reporting. For earlier numbers from the night from my first thread, click here.
Update 36: I now have city of Portland absentee numbers: 6,291 No to 1,762 Yes. That's 78%-22% for us. That's freaking incredibly good. That moves the overall city of Portland numbers to 73%-27% for us.
Update 35: We won Auburn 51.5-48.5%! That's part of the Lewiston-Auburn metro area, heavily Catholic. Vastly different than Lewiston which we lost 60-40%.
Update 34: General update- most of our base vote cities/towns are in, and we're at 57% overall in our targets. It's a good number. We're waiting for more rural parts of the state e.g. Region 4 to come in and a little of 3. See my earlier thread for an explanation of the Regions.
Update 33: OVERALL numbers in so far: 57% No, 43% Yes.
Update 32: Won the town of Waterville 54-46%. It's 15 minute north of Augusta.
Update 31: York, ME, one of our base vote places, is 63-37%- very good.
Update 30: We won the town of Gorham, 64-36%, which is great news.
Update 29: Some video from the stage at the party downstairs- Jesse Connolly, Rep. Chellie Pingree, Gov. Baldacci, Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree, Senate President Libby Mitchell. Go here to view.
Update 28: Final % in from the city of Portland itself, largest city in the state and a heavy base vote area- No 71%, Yes 29%, without absentees.
Update 27: We lost the state capitol of Augusta, 47-53%. Not good.
Update 26: I can't write overall aggregate numbers, but we are doing well. There are 82 precincts in overall, and we are looking at key areas to be able to project.
Update 25: We won the city of South Portland 64-36%!
Update 10--Christie wins: Damn it, damn it, damn it. AP calls it for Christie. Don't expect the projection to be reversed, given what I am hearing behind the scenes. It's over.
Update 9--Starting to get dire: I am feeling less and less confident here. The projections don't look great at this point.
Update 8--4 big Democratic towns left to report: From a source, there are four big Democratic towns left to report in New Jersey. Still, going to be difficult.
Update 7--Corzine will get closer: Given the areas that have yet to report, Corzine should end up with between 45-48% of the vote, per 538 on twitter. Given that the total Independent vote looks to be around 6%, 48% would win, and 47% is probably recount territory. Expect a long night.
Update 6--site update: Stripped out some of the content in the left hand columns. Open Left is loading much faster now.
Update 5--exit poll toplines show 1% race: According to Josh at TPM, the exit polls show Corzine and Christie within one point of each other. This may very well be the nail biter the polls had predicted. The early results are from Republican-leaning areas.
Update 4: Real results coming in now.
Update 3: The early results are not from any precinct. Must be early voting of some kind.
Update 2: Early exit poll data indicate that Daggett supporters may have moved hard toward Christie toward the end:
In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie took 58 percent of the independent vote, according to early CNN Exit Poll data. Incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, took just 33 percent of the independent vote. Independents made up 27 percent of the voters in New Jersey race.
With Daggett only receiving 9% of the Independent vote, a late exodus of Daggett supporters to Christie may spell real trouble for Corzine. Damn it.
Update 1: On the plus side, AP says the campaign is too close to call.
Update 24: I'm going to start a new update thread and put some of the ones from earlier in the night in the extended entry in this thread.
Update 23: We won Bangor, 54-46%, third largest city in Maine.
Update 22: Campaign manager Jesse Connolly is live now on Maddow (9:19 PM).
Update 21: Let me do an overall roundup- we are getting the base vote numbers in that we need from Portland, its suburbs, and the college areas of Orono and Farmington. Bad news so far is losing Lewiston 60-40%, but not horrible. Still waiting on a lot of Region 1 precincts- where our other base votes are- and rural areas.
Update 20: State Representative Mike Casey, who represents downtown Lewiston, just sent me final total numbers- we lost 60-40%. The final reporting turned the tide. Again, that's a heavily Catholic area, but the percentages aren't great.
Update 19: Final numbers are in from UM-Orono campus- 81% No, 19% yes. In town of Orono itself, we won 73-27%.
Update 18: We won Kennebunkport, home of the Bushes, 61-39%.
Update 17: We won Bar Harbor, a town in "downeast" Maine- very small coastal town- 71-29%!
Update 16: We won Yarmouth, another suburb north of here, 66-34%.
Update 15: A huge cheer just went up in the room- we won Brunswick, a coastal town 20 minutes north of Portland with Bowdoin College in it, 63-37%. What we're looking for.
Update 14: Marc Mutty is live on the local news talking about the silent majority coming out. Right.
Update 13: I just took a look at all the final numbers in from every Portland precinct. Portland is the largest city in the state. We're winning each precinct by a touchdown or two. Portland is the uber-base of base precincts in the state, and we needed to do huge there, and we have. Mid-70s and mid-80s in terms of % No votes which is great in many places.
This is a thread for election results from Maine. I will be updating this thread from the boiler room headquarters as numbers come in. You can also follow updates on my Twitter feed. The earlier updates from the night are in the extended entry.
Update 1: One thing to note about Virginia is that the pro-Republican areas tend to report first. So, in an election that is already expected to be a blow-out, this could get real ugly, real fast.
In 2008, candidate Obama won independent voters in Virginia, 49%-48%, according to exit polls. But the exits in this year's contest show that independents abandoned Creigh Deeds (D) and went overwhelmingly for the Republican, Bob McDonnell, 62%-37%.
Voters, age 18-29, made up more than one in every five voters in 2008 (21%) in Virginia. This year, they made up just 10%. They broke 60%-39% for Obama, but just 51%-47% for Deeds.
By contrast, older voters (65+) made up more of the electorate this time around in Virginia. In 2008, voters 65 and older made up 11% of the electorate; in 2009, 18%. They broke for the Republican both times by similar margins -- in 2008, 53%-46% for John McCain; in 2009, 55%-45% for McDonnell.
That is a seriously depressed base in Virginia.
Update 3: To no one's surprise, McDonnell wins. I guess Deeds just didn't swerve far enough to the right. After all, the under-30 vote was only cut in half. He could have done better than that.
Another great victory for Blue Dogism. This thread won't be updated anymore.
Tonight, we will be covering election results in three threads:
One thread for Maine, starting at 8 p.m., eastern (Adam)
One thread for New Jersey, starting at 8 p.m., eastern (me)
One thread for everything else, starting at 7 p.m. eastern (me)
In the meantime, this is an open thread to discuss the elections tonight, before any results come in.
Update (Adam): 1. Turnout is exceeding expectations in most of our target precincts. Sec/State had to eat his words this am re his prediction of 35% turnout. Volunteer shifts at location after location is great, people are coming back for more turf. Field ppl saying we want to be north of 45% in terms of turnout to be in good shape.
2. Jesse Connolly is going on Maddow at 9:15 PM EST.
3. No legal reports of suppression besides a few isolated incidents re people asked if they are legal residents.
4. Polls are open until 8 PM. If you have friends in Maine, be sure to text/call them and remind them to vote. They can find their polling place at this link. Have to get every last vote.
While there is some drama in tonight's elections--most notably in Maine and New Jersey--there is little to no drama in the two prominent campaigns featuring conservative, Blue Dog style Democrats. In Virginia, Creigh Deeds is going to get crushed by Bob McDonnell. In the New York 23rd congressional district special election, Bill Owens is likely to get trounced by Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
Even though conservative Democrats are about to lose--and lose hard--at least one Blue Dog is none the less declaring that these defeats are a sign that Democrats as a whole should act more like Blue Dogs. Representative Jason Altmire:
Centrist Blue Dog Democrats might see their position strengthened if Democrats suffer broader electoral losses, one Blue Dog member suggested Tuesday.
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) argued that an election night rebuke for Democratic candidates across the nation could lead some in the party to rethink their plans on healthcare reform and other issues.
"It looks as though the anger that has been boiling up the last couple of months is going to lead to a pretty high turnout from Republicans and from people who are concerned about increased spending," Altmire said Monday evening during an appearance on Fox Business Network.
The message here is that Blue Dog losses are a sign that more Democrats should be like Blue Dogs. Presuming that Blue Dog victories would also, in the eyes of Blue Dogs, be a sign that Democrats as a whole should be more like Blue Dogs, then really there is nothing that can happen at the ballot box that would not be a sign Democrats should be more like Blue Dogs.
In a way, this is actually perfect thinking for our current system of government. Wall Street crashes the economy, so give more money to Wall Street. Health insurance costs too much, so give them more customers with little competition. Energy and agriculture conglomerates are the largest polluters in America, so construct a climate change bill that gives those conglomerates tens of billions of dollars.
Blue Dog Democrats lose, so Democrats should be more like Blue Dogs. It all makes perfect sense, as long as your goal isn't actually for Democrats to win elections.
STATE BLOGS
