With unemploment at 12% by election day 2010, Democrats suffered their worst defeat since 1994, losing 44 House seats and making Eric Cantor speaker of the House, losing five Senate seats, making it impossible to stop a Republican filibuster, and losing 11 governorships for just a paltry 17 governors nationwide compared to Republicans mammoth 32. Democrats also lost 400 state legislative seats and key chambers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Iowa, and Wisconsin, putting Republicans in control of redistricting for the 2011 census.
Many will trace these results to the 12% unemployment rate, but others blame the fact that Democrats again failed on delivering universal healthcare and were unable to pass a sufficient stimulus. The filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotaymayor, which forces President Obama to withrdaw his pick didnt help matters. In order to help pull the economy out of the Depression, Speaker-elect Eric Cantor is proposing another Bush style round of tax cuts aimed heavily at the wealthiest Americans, because as he put it "they are the ones do the hiring". Cantor also plans to pass major spending cuts on social programs to pay for the tax cuts. Will the still Democratic Senate go along?
President Obama's approval ratings remain at a low 37% and show now sign of rebounding. In 2012 Presidential trial heats, he manages to stay competitive with Mitt Romney, trailing Romney by just 41%-43% and is tied with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at 43%-43%. The economy shows no sings of rebounding and many economists say that we would be lucky if we could get 1.5% GDP growth in 2011-2012, not nearly enough to start bringing down the unemployment rate.
This situation has left many prominent Democrats wishing that they had never won the 2008 election. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin recently said "Lets face it, Obama winning that election was the worst thing that could have ever happened to us". There is increasing speculation that Mr. Obama may not even run for reelection in 2012.