We are now roughly forty-eight hours away from the polls being open from coast-to-coast in what has been a tumultuous and fairly darned interesting off-year election cycle. Presented below is a little bit of a clip-and-save synopsis of some of the major races that will be ultimately decided when the polls close on Tuesday.
By all means, if a race is missed in this summary, feel free to augment the list of races in the comments. The more places to watch the returns come in on Election Night, the better.
The common theme in many of the most high-profile races is a vast difference in base enthusiasm, which may very well allow the GOP to have a happy Election Night (something of a rarity as of late).
The guys at PPP offer two interesting data points that could very readily define Election Night 2009: Barack Obama has, according to their polling, held serve through this point in his presidency. In other words, the Obama coalition that carried him to victory with just under 53% of the vote remains intact, as evidenced by the fact that his job approval has hovered roughly in that 53% range throughout the election cycle.
However, that Obama coalition is quite clearly not voting with nearly the frequency as the GOP coalition.
Democrats, at this moment in the political arena, are both more complacent (winning everything not nailed down for two cycles will do that) and more conflicted (now that Democrats run the show, there is no shortage of diverging roadmaps as to how to use that political power).
The Republicans, meanwhile, have seen their role in governing dramatically reduced. As a result, the GOP coalition is fired up on a common goal--denying the Democrats the ability to govern.
As has been proven time and again, negative sentiments are a powerful catalyst, and that may well explain what has become a pretty palpable enthusiasm gap in the 2009 cycle.
Quite obviously, this is something Democrats would do well to remedy within the next 52 weeks.
VIRGINIA: Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, State House
Virginia, a state which turned blue in 2008 at the Presidential level for the first time in two generations, has seen Democrats in the Governor's mansion since 2001. That would appear to be likely to change soon, as Republican state Attorney General Bob McDonnell has run a smooth (Democrats could easily argue deceptive) campaign that has played basically error-free ball throughout. After briefly getting a bump from the disclosure of a controversial college thesis authored by McDonnell, Democratic state senator Creigh Deeds has struggled to gain traction. Recent polling has given McDonnell a double-digit lead, but Deeds has, at the last, wedded himself to the President, in a hope that this will drive base turnout. Downballot, the Democrats are also suffering from a lack of base enthusiasm, as they struggle to make up ground. Republican incumbent Lt. Governor Bill Bolling has had a consistent lead over former Warner cabinet official Jody Wagner (although PPP did tweet on Friday that Wagner was polling better than her Democratic comrades). In an open-seat AG's race to replace McDonnell, it is a battle between two state legislators, as Republican Ken Cuccinelli has held a modest lead over Democrat Steve Shannon throughout.
After making up some solid ground of the GOP legislative majority in 2007, the Democrats were within striking range of snagging the majority in the State House of Delegates (the margin shrinking to 53-45-2). The recent woes with generating base enthusiasm might hamstring those prospects. A recent analysis by Swing State Project diarist Johnny Longtorso seems to indicted that the likely outcome of the legislative elections on Tuesday could be a wash, or the GOP could seize back a small handful of seats. Some Republicans are talking major gains in seats, fueled by the aforementioned enthusiasm gap.
NEW JERSEY--Governor, State Assembly
Few races in this 2009 cycle have been as tumultuous as the re-election bid of New Jersey's Democratic Governor, Jon Corzine. Given the brutal climate for governors of both parties nationwide (there are simply no good choices for state executives right now), Corzine appeared to have been left for dead. Polls taken during the summer gave his opponent, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, a double-digit lead.
The last few months, however, have been incredibly unkind to Christie. His ace in the hole, his reputation as a "corruption buster" while serving as U.S. Attorney, took a beating. Story after story surfaced of Christie bringing undue political influence to the U.S. Attorney's office, as well as more personal allegations that he had transgressed the law on occasion and tried to trade on his job title to avoid punishment.
As a result, Christie's once solid lead in the polls evaporated. Some Democrats smile knowingly--pointing out that this always happens in New Jersey.
As we stand at the doorstep of Election Day, however, the polls are all over the map. In the past two weeks, polling on the race has ranged from a seven-point Christie lead to a nine-point Corzine lead. Complicating matters is the existence of a third-party candidate (former Republican Chris Daggett). Daggett could, if polling is to be believed, notch between 10-20% of the vote on Election Day, though some surveys have shown his support flagging at the last.
Meanwhile, the 80-member State Assembly is also up for grabs on Election Day in New Jersey. Democrats hold a solid majority in the Assembly (48-32), but there is some consternation about the direction voters will go here, as well. Like many states, the lower house of the New Jersey legislature are in hatched districts--two assemblymen get elected from one district. Therefore if one district has a palpable change in its voter behavior, it doesn't cost you one seat in the chamber, it often costs you two.
NY-23: Special Election To Replace John McHugh (R)
Christie-Corzine has had some twists and turns, but even that race cannot compare with this truly bizarre electoral contest. It began simply enough when longtime moderate Republican Congressman John McHugh accepted President Obama's offer to be Secretary of the Army. The district's party chairpersons had the right to appoint the nominees. Democrats went with an unknown quantity in attorney Bill Owens, who was not even a registered Democrat when he was given the nod. Republicans went with state legislator DeDe Scozzafava, to the left of the party on social matters and with an amenable relationship with labor.
The Republican Right pitched a collective fit at the selection, immediately deriding Scozzafava as a RINO. Almost immediately, some of the fringe elements on the right began to push for Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. That movement gained momentum, and by late October, several major figures in the Republican Party had forsaken the GOP nominee in favor of the more ideologically pure third-party insurgent.
This culminated, of course, in the bizarre moment witnessed just yesterday, when Scozzafava abruptly suspended her campaign with just three days left before Election Day.
In an ancestrally Republican district (parts of the district have not been represented by a Democrat since the Civil War), Owens is probably swimming upstream with only one opponent. However, it is possible that Scozzafava's voters might be so disgusted with how their candidate was treated that they might be encouraged to defect.
CA-10: Special Election To Replace Ellen Tauscher (D)
The forgotten race of this cycle may well be the special election in Northern California's "East Bay" to replace Ellen Tauscher (who took a position in President Obama's State Department). Democratic Lt. Governor John Garamendi is being challenged by Republican businessman David Harmer, whose father was once the state's Lt. Governor. A poll late last week by SurveyUSA gave Garamendi a 50-40 lead over Harmer, a comfortable lead, but a bit of an underperformance in a district that Obama carried by thirty points.
INITIATIVE CAMPAIGNS
Direct democracy will have its day on Election Day, as well. A lot of eyes are focused on Maine, where Question 1 seeks to issue a citizen's veto on the new laws governing marriage equity. Polls on this particular question have been pretty close to a coin flip. A TABOR-style economic reform is also on the ballot in Maine, in Question 4. Polling on that has been pretty close to a coin flip, as well, with the two most recent polls split on the issue.
Meanwhile, across the country in Washington, marriage equity is also on the ballot, as Referendum 71 will confirm a legislative bill which confers the same rights on same-sex couples as are conferred on other marriages. Polls on this domestic partnership bill have been generally favorable, with recent polls showing a lead for the measure. Washington also has its own little TABOR-esque initiative: Initiative 1033. After leading in polls, the initiative has taken a tumble. An early October SUSA poll had it leading, but under 50%. A UW poll later in the month had it trailing narrowly.
In Ohio, it is casinos that are on the ballot. Issue 3 will allow casinos to be built in four Ohio cities (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Toledo). Proponents say it will bring badly needed revenue to the state; detractors say that it will grant a monopoly to a single gaming company (who, not surprisingly, is its biggest advocate). Polls show a solid, but not overwhelming, lead for the measure.
LOCAL ELECTIONS: Potential Toss-Ups from Coast to Coast
There are a variety of mayoral and county elections on November 3rd, and some of them promise to be coinflips.
The highest profile race might be among the most boring--New York City. No one expects the badly outgunned Democrat, Bill Thompson, to be able to compete with the nine-figure campaign (yes, you read that right) of Republican incumbent Michael Bloomberg. Every poll has given Bloomberg a lead, with most of them expecting a double-digit edge for the incumbent.
A race that has drawn some attention in the diaries on Daily Kos is out west. In King County, Washington (home to Seattle), there is a contentious race for County Executive. Though the race is nominally nonpartisan, there is a clear partisan distinction in the race. Former television personality Susan Hutchison, is claiming to be nonpartisan. Of course, she has left a paper trail that clearly contradicts that. But she is a well-known local face, has run lots of ads proclaiming herself to be beyond political party, and that has made her a force in this race. Her opponent, Dow Constantine, is the Democratic chairman of the King County Council. Polls in this one gave Hutchison a narrow edge, but a recent Washington Poll was the first to put the Democrat in the lead.
There are certainly other mayoral races to draw attention as well, and many of them were highlighted in a recent diary on Swing State Project. The potential toss-ups can be found in Charlotte, where Democrat Anthony Foxx is dead even with Republican John Lassiter, and in St. Petersburg, where Democrat Kathleen Ford and Republican Bill Foster are neck and neck.
Are there lessons to be learned on Tuesday? Hard to say. Most of these races have individual dynamics that are so unique that drawing broad conclusions from them would probably be foolhardy (although Tom Jensen makes a pretty good case for declaring a Corzine win as a positive referendum on the President). No doubt, the GOP has been in the electoral wilderness for so long that their share of expected victories will no doubt be declared a canary in the coal mine for 2010. That's to be expected, perhaps. It is hard to find a race in all of those listed above where the dynamics are likely to be replicated in 2010.
The sole exception might be that right-wingers nationwide might be tempted to replicate the Doug Hoffman candidacy. But it is hard to see where that would be, by and large, bad news for the Democrats.