Elections 2005: Republicans GAIN

A good example of the brainless incompetence and liberal bias of the national media is the coverage given to Tuesday's elections. Most newspapers and TV news have portrayed the results as a grand victory for the Democrats, and made connections to the president's low approval rating. Some have seemed almost giddy at the expectation of Republican losses in the upcoming 2006 midterm elections to Congress.

Now, there's no question that the president is struggling, and there are several good reasons why the Republicans may very well suffer significant losses next year. But Tuesday is not one of them.

Allow me to summarize: There were two gubernatorial elections this year, one in New Jersey and the other in Virginia. In New Jersey, the Republican candidate managed to reduce the Democratic margin of victory from 14% to 9% compared to the last election. That's a REPUBLICAN GAIN. (In addition, polls consistently show Republican State Senator Tom Kean jr leading all Democrats except acting governor Codey for next year's federal Senate election.)

In Virginia, the Democratic margin was up by an insignificant 1%, and the Republicans managed to wrestle the position of Lieutenant Governor away from the Dems. That's a REPUBLICAN GAIN. Some have looked at Virginia's history of voting for Republican presidents and concluded that therefore, they should also have won the governor's race. The unpopularity of the president is cited, and some even claim that his quick drop-in on Monday lost the race for the Reps. The problem with this theory is that the Republican candidates for Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor did significantly better than Jerry Kilgore, their candidate for governor. That points very clearly to this being a case of individual differences in the way voters regarded the respective candidates, not some general punishment of the president. As I've pointed out, the Republicans GAINED a statewide office in Virginia this year. We have to remember that Jerry Kilgore ran a hopeless campaign, got in a tangle over the use of Hitler in an ad, lost the TV debate against his Democratic opponent and was opposed by a tremendously popular Governor - Mark Warner.

There were 39 statewide referendums in 7 states Tuesday. Much has been made of the results from California, but again - these were liberal victories in a liberal state. Many with a much smaller margin of victory than Democratic candidates routinely post in elections. So how is this a Republican loss? Two of the proposals defeated (79 & 80) were clearly liberal, and yet they were voted down decisively. In Ohio, a Republican state, four proposals initiated by Democratic groups were rejected. Again, no surprise, and no warning signal to Republicans.

Finally, we have the local elections. Most of them were of little interest in terms of judging the relative strength between the two parties, but there are two results that stand out. Firstly, the Republican candidate in San Diego won a clear victory over the Democratic candidate. Secondly, Republican mayor Mike Bloomberg won re-election with the widest margin ever posted in a New York City election. That's a REPUBLICAN GAIN.

To summarize:
* These were local elections, mainly decided by local factors.
* Status quo was maintained in the gubernatorial elections, but the REPUBLICANS GAINED in share of votes cast, and the REPUBLICANS GAINED one statewide office.
* Neither party managed to change policies through referendums in states where they are the minority party, but the REPUBLICANS came closest.
* REPUBLICANS made slight gains in the local elections.