Analysis of Election 2009: Voters Wanted Change

I was surprised at some of the results last night but not at others. When I look over what happened in New Jersey, Virginia and, yes, Worcester I see one clear pattern - incumbents lost.  And incumbents lost with anywhere from a fairly slim to a fairly hefty margin.  If the voters are trying to tell elected officials anything it's "we don't like the situation we're in and you guys don't seem to be doing enough to change it."  (Note that in the next election, the Special Election for Senate in Massachusetts, Congressman Capuano who is running as a Washington Insider is not doing so hot in the polls).

Honestly, given that 2008 was the year a whole bunch of new faces went to Congress (and the White House) and it was such a bad year economically I'm not surprised that 2009, which has also been pretty bad economically (except for a brief period in summer when stocks rallied pretty far), would also result in the displacement of incumbents.  I said before that New Jersey pitted an unpopular Governor against a challenger and that challenger was going to run a strong race no matter what positions he held.  That prediction has been largely true - Cristie seems to have won 48.8% of the vote, just enough to win against Corzine.  Likewise, the current Democratic Governor, Kaine, didn't make decisive moves in helping people out.  I'm not surprised that Deeds lost there (although the race pitting Deeds against McDonnell previously would also indicate a likely Deeds loss).  And, in my own Worcester, we elected a Mayor, Joe O'Brien, who was running against what everyone thought to be a strong incumbent.  So, I have to say that it seems to me that the economy and everything that goes along with it really pushed people to vote for change in terms of incumbents and incumbent parties.

When we look at the returns in New York's 23rd Congressional District the same holds true.  The Republican was kept out of office.  Interestingly, the twist on this trend happened in California's 10th Congressional District which the Democrats managed to hold on to even with everything bad in the economy.  I really don't know too much about the race in CA-10 but the National Journal indicates that the Republicans weren't really a presence, so I'm not sure we can actually draw any real conclusions from it.

The one major bucking of the trend was in terms of Mayoral Races in big cities.  Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston, and New York City all continue to have their incumbent Mayors.  My hypothesis on this is that perhaps in these cities the voters didn't see the Mayor as having much control over the economy whereas some place like Worcester, which was already suffering before the recession, saw ineffectiveness at the Mayoral level and had to deal with severe budget cuts/reallocations of funds.  It's simply not clear what's going on in Mayoral races but, for federal elections at least, the trend last night seemed to be out with the old, in with the new.

Maine's Proposition 1 was a major disappointment.  Pollster.com explains how what happened could have happened in a very detailed way.  Mostly, it was a combination of polling margins and the language of the Proposition.  A "No" vote was a vote for same-sex marriage - that's a bit confusing and something same-sex marriage advocates should work to correct if they put a ballot measure on the ballot in 2010.

It's hard to say exactly why Prop 1 failed to continue to exist.  I'm sure there will be more detailed reports coming out soon but overall I think the conservatives did a very good job of motivating voters and we just didn't see the diversity in Maine that we'd normally see for something like a Presidential election.  It's quite possible that a vote on the same Ballot Measure would have produced different results had this been a Presidential election year.  But there is also probability that, as with most progress, taking four steps forward is met with one step back.  It is hard to say exactly.

Also, results from Washington State's Referendum 71 are still coming in so no analysis on that yet.

Natch Greyes is a Democrat providing commentary and analysis on elections and policy agendas in American politics. Sphere: Related Content