Success, but not a repudiation

Last Tuesday was a big victory for the Republican Party and could help shore up a shaken conservative base and provide legitimacy to an organization that was polling close to 20 percent in nationwide party identity polls. In a reversal of Election Day results a year ago, Republican candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey soundly defeated their opponents in what some saw as a repudiation of President Barack Obama’s governing mandate. Virginia’s result, a traditional Republican stronghold, gave party leaders a sigh of relief after Obama carried the state in the 2008 election and proved that while it isn’t as reliably red as it used to be it is still capable of electing conservative candidates to office.

While this is a tremendous boost for the Republican Party going into the 2010 mid-term elections, I’m not sure if it’s fair to paint this election as a true rejection of the Obama administration’s policies. New Jersey saw an unpopular incumbent governor — who has a background in the same Wall Street companies that received the popular blame concerning the economic collapse — lose to a Republican candidate who staked his reputation on being a muckraker in a state that does not have the best reputation for clean government. Both states saw exit polls point out that Obama is still a fairly popular president and witnessed a slightly different electorate in 2009 than in 2008. Young people only made up 11 percent of the general electorate in New Jersey and Virginia in this election rather than the 20 percent they made up in the 2008 electorate.

It’s interesting to look at this from some different angles. Some of the young people that came out in 2008 may never come out to vote again in future elections. That’s speculation at this point, but with Obama’s falling approval ratings it’d be fair to guess that some people who supported his candidacy may be getting disillusioned and choose to stay at home the next time. They certainly did in New Jersey and Virginia even with Obama making personal pleas for their votes at the last minute. Regardless, an older electorate was motivated to come out in the 2009 election. It was an electorate that was motivated primarily by the economy, which continues to show a lack of job growth. What’s important is that this electorate, motivated by the economy much as they were in 2008, turned to Republican candidates rather than the Democratic candidates.

I’m hesitant to use the elections in New Jersey and Virginia as a litmus test for the 2010 midterms but I think it shows that there is realistic hope for the Republicans. Voters are not happy with how the economy is shaping up and they’re turning against the Democratic Party. There’s a different electorate that was motivated to vote — an older, more traditional electorate, which tends to favor the Republican Party rather than the Democrats. Without Obama on the ballot in 2010, the turnout could be similar. The Republicans aren’t without their own problems as they struggle for an identity, but history is on their side in the midterm elections as the president’s party historically loses seats in Congress.