It Was Much Bigger Than 2-1 Last Night

Don't let today's spin fool you. Democrats would have you believe that NY-23 was the only race that counted and that New Jersey and Virginia didn't really matter.

They mattered:

The Democrats did not lose a 2-1 squeaker last night. They lost two huge races, saw an overall evaporation of 25 basis points of support -- and lost by nearly 500 thousand votes cumulatively in the three high profile elections.

Or put another way, Republicans won two races decided by millions of voters -- and Democrats won a small race dominated by party operatives. In addition, the GOP made some historic gains in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington state special elections to boot.

In the context of Bob McDonnell's huge win in Virginia and Chris Christie's surprisingly comfortable win in of all places New Jersey, the fact that Bill Owens scraped up enough votes to win NY 23 is a testament to the superior political insider maneuvering of the Democrats over the Republicans. So you mean the GOP party apparatus stinks? Well yes, but I think we knew that already.

What we did not know was just how overwhelming the anti-Democrat tide would be among voters. In the three talked about races, it was a blow out of something like 55-42% overall in precincts that voted for Obama 56-44 just a year ago. The raw totals will end up a tad under 2.4 million GOP votes to 1.9 million for the Democrats in round numbers.

So don't buy into any 2-1 split decision analysis. It was a stunning reversal of a full quarter of the electorate in one year's time.

There's more analysis here. Everyone expected the GOP to do well in Virginia. That result had been forecast for weeks, and Obama had long ago thrown Creigh Deeds under the bus. However, New Jersey was a pleasant surprise. Of the three big races that was the one I was most concerned about. Given the history of fraud in that state, I wasn't sure that Chris Christie could garner enough votes to overcome it.

Obama spent Sunday tying up air traffic all over the East Coast as he campaigned around New Jersey, all to no avail. He clearly thought the race was still winnable, but it wasn't even very close. As the early results came in Christie had a comfortable lead and pretty much kept it all night. At one point he was showing an 11 point lead, and I don't remember it ever getting closer than 3 points. Christie was never in trouble all night.

So, Obama campaigned for both Corzine and Deeds and both lost. Biden campaigned for Bill Owens in NY-23 and he won. Who woulda thunk it.