When I went to bed last night, the results were just coming in from New York 09. A number of commentators had nonetheless called it for Republican Turner. Weprin was holding onto Queens, but just barely. Turner was running away with Brooklyn.
This morning, with some precincts waiting to report, Turner looks to have won by eight points, 54/46%. That's a landslide. Turner lost Queens by 3%, but flattened Weprin in Brooklyn 67/33%.
Meanwhile out west, Nevada 2 was a blowout. Republican Mark Amodei defeated Democrat Kate Marshall by a whopping twenty-two points (58/36%). Like NY09, that result was a little larger than expected.
As I noted before, the results in New York feel a lot like Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. The Democrats took the seat for granted until the eleventh hour and then rushed in cash and celebrities in a panic. They were explaining how a lack luster candidate was all to blame days before the actual vote.
New York 09 became referendum on Obama. That is all you can call it when a Catholic Republican beats an Orthodox Jew largely on the strength of Orthodox Jewish votes. The district is, to be sure, very atypical. It has been trending more conservative over time. Still, voter registration favors democrats almost 3 to 1 and it hasn't elected a Republican since the 1920's. Neither Anthony Weiner nor Barack Obama had much trouble there before.
Nevada 02 is much more representative. It is Republican, but Obama nearly carried it. This is the kind of district that a Democrat should at least be competitive in. That 22 point victory suggests that the same forces evident before 2010 are still at work. They may be stronger. From the National Journal:
Look at the congressional generic ballot, where Democrats traditionally hold an advantage even in lean years. The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Republicans holding a 47 percent to 41 percent edge, the largest margin for Republicans since 1996, when the question was first asked. When Republicans picked up 63 House seats in 2010, Democrats actually held a 46 percent to 44 percent advantage on the poll's generic ballot.
I make no predictions. It is possible, however, that Barack Obama will turn out to be a bigger disaster for the Democrats than Jimmy Carter.
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