Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Election '09 tests do not bode well for Obama

WASHINGTON - Republicans surged to victory in governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday, wresting control from Democrats in both states as independents who swept Barack Obama to a historic 2008 victory broke big for the GOP. It was a troubling sign for the president and his party heading into an important midterm election year.

2 comments:

evan said...

A Democrat won a seat held by Republicans since the era of Reconstruction.

This is excellent news for Republicans.

Eddie A said...

Although if you add the votes for Hoffman and Scozzafava (Conservative & GOP combined) it still outnumbers the votes for Owens (Democrat). It's not great news for Republicans that Owens won, but it's not crushing either considering that he was less popular compared against those representing more conservative ideologies.

There was also the lowest voter turnout since 1970, with slightly more than 125,000 voters. In fact, it nearly matched the voter turnout in 2002 when John McHugh ran unopposed! With the late collapse of Scozzafava, many moderate Republicans probably chose not to vote rather than initiate any interest in an alternative candidate so late in the game. Also, Owens won with the smallest majority since 1976, with only a 4,600 vote margin.

Either way, not excellent news for Democrats either.