"The Republican candidates killed among independents. In both New Jersey and Virginia, they won by two to one. Independent voters make up their largest share of the electorate since pollsters have been counting them. In 2006 and 2008, these voters backed Congressional Democrats, and in the 2008 presidential race, they went for Obama 51 percent to 47 percent over John McCain. They've been souring on his presidency, though, and now more disapprove of his performance than approve. In Virginia, Obama won 48 percent of independents. The Republican Bob McDonnell won 68 percent of those voters this time around. In New Jersey, Christie carried independents 58 percent to 31 percent, which helped him overcome the fact that there are 700,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in that state."
This is probably THE story of the night from last night's results. If only the voters of NY's 23rd Congressional District had the cahones to vote for Conservative Party candidate Douglas Hoffman, then it would have been a clean sweep, but still, 46% for Hoffman in a three-way race isnt bad. Shame on those 6% RINO's that voted for a social liberal like Dede Scozzafava. That could have made the difference right there. Newt Gingrich did almost irreparable harm to the party by endorsing someone so opposed to the core values of so many party members. Thanks Newt.
2 comments:
Thanks for the update JD; my favorite line in the article you reference here is:
"the stronger argument coming out of the 2009 elections is that voters are embracing Republican ideas."
Newt probably thought (erroneously) that he was making the best of a bad situation and he underestimated the chances of a third party candidate. He had plenty of historical data to back him up. The real culprits were the Republican machine that chose Scozzafava in the first place. Hopefully they got the message.
This was the race that I was most disappointed in, because a Hoffman win would not only have sent a message to the White House and to Congress, but also to the Republican Party. I think they all got the message, but a Hoffman win would have been a wonderful exclamation point.
Post a Comment