So Election Day is over (except, of course, in Alaska, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Illinois, which have statewide races in some doubt, and in eight states with a total of nine unresolved House races).
You probably know the basics. Democrats held onto control of the Senate, their margin reduced from 59-41 to 53-47, and Republicans won the House, having gained at this point 60 seats, 21 more than they needed for a majority. Governorships flipped from 26D/24R to 29R/20D/1Chafeecrat. Republicans took over control of 19 state legislative chambers, just in time for redistricting.
Republicans won the national House popular vote by a 52-45 margin, roughly the same margin by which Barack Obama defeated John McCain in 2008. But it clearly was not the same electorate; exit polls reported that voters split evenly in their 2008 preferences. Many observers explain that by an “enthusiasm gap” between the two parties, but much of it is a matter of normal mid-term voting patterns, producing an older and whiter electorate that happens to favor Republicans at the present time.
House losses by Democrats were, to a remarkable extent, concentrated among districts that are either pro-Republican or highly marginal according to recent presidential elections. There were virtually no true upsets. A significant share of Tuesday’s casualties involved long-serving members from southern and border states who finally succumbed to ever-increasingly hostile territory (e.g., John Spratt of SC, Jim Marshall of GA, Gene Taylor of MS, Chet Edwards of TX, Ike Skelton of MO; two similar Members from TN retired). A much larger group, particularly from the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic states, were Class of 2006 and (especially) 2008 who got to Congress via close races and were extremely vulnerable to adverse trends in turnout and the overall political climate.
Trying to link these losses to any specific issues or controversies is probably futile, with the possible exception of climate change; support for legislation on this subject undoubtedly hurt Democrats in coal-producing states, most notably veteran VA Rep. Rick Boucher. But generally, the results reflected a general partisan shift, which in turn reflected a general (if predictable) change in turnout from a presidential to a mid-term profile.
The Senate results were not terribly surprising, either. What looked to some like a slight pro-Democratic trend in some of those races (notably PA and WI, where Democrats did better than expected, and in NV and CO, where Democrats won after Republicans led in late polls) were probably more the product of Republican bias in state-based polls, particularly those conducted by Rasmussen. The Alaska situation, obviously, is very unusual; Lisa Murkowski’s apparent lead guarantees a count of write-in votes, but though a loss for Joe Miller would be deeply embarrassing to Sarah Palin and to the Tea Party Movement, it would not change the partisan balance in the Senate.
The net-five-gain in governorships by Republicans disguises a much more complicated picture in which Republicans took control of eleven Democratic governorships (ME, PA, TN, OH, MI, WI, IA, KS, OK, NM,); Democrats took control of five Republican governorships (CT, VT, MN, CA and HI); and independent Linc Chafee won a formerly Republican governorship in RI. With all this churn, however, only two incumbent governors lost: Chet Culver of IA and Ted Strickland of OH.
The carnage created by Republican gains in state legislatures will take a while to sort out, but as Hotline noted:
The GOP holds the redistricting trifecta in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Ohio – plus, as noted earlier, Nebraska and North Carolina [where the Democratic governor cannot veto redistricting plans].
Florida voters did approve a constitutional amendment imposing fairly strict conditions on redistricting to prevent gerrymanders; the state was already operating under a heavily pro-GOP plan. California voters also approved an initiative placing congressional redistricting under a very independent commission composed partly of citizens chosen by lottery; this change could help Republicans or at least produce more competitive districts.
In other non-candidate ballot developments, California voters rejected two nationally significant initiatives, one (Prop 19) that would have legalized small-scale consumption and cultivation of marijuana, and another (Prop 23) that would have suspended the state’s unique carbon emissions control system. In news of equal importance to locals, voters did approve a constitutional amendment getting rid of the two-thirds vote requirement for passage of a budget in the California legislature, which has all but paralyzed California government for years. In Iowa, voters rejected “retention” of three state Supreme Court justices who supported the unanimous decision to legalize same-sex marriage. This was major goal of that state’s powerful social conservative faction.
We’ll get more into post-election interpretations, along with prescriptions for what both parties should do now, next week.
It’s another Tuesday, and believe it or not, there are no primaries today! In fact, the next batch is not until September 14, when seven states plus the District of Columbia hold elections. This last weekend, however, voters in Louisiana and West Virginia went to the polls, with the latter limited to a special primary election for the late Robert Byrd’s Senate seat.
