White House Gears Up for Disappointing Election Day [View All]

[Purveyor]

With Democrats poised to lose the governor's race in Virginia, and to possibly lose the governor's race in New Jersey and a special election for a House seat in New York, the White House has started insisting any pending losses will not have any significance.

"Whatever the results are I don't think they portend a lot in dealing with the future," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Friday, pointing to the fact that Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races in 2001 despite a very popular President Bush, with Republicans picking up seats in Congress in 2002.

"I think we continue to take the long view on what's going on in Washington and throughout the country," Gibbs said.

In Virginia, Democrat Creigh Deeds trailed Republican Bob McDonnell, 44% to 55%, in the latest Washington Post poll through October 25. Since the early 1970s, the party not in power in the White House has won the Virginia governor's race, and even Democratic supporters of Deeds' have been saying he certainly played a role in this tradition likely being continued on Tuesday.

President Obama will appear at campaign rallies in New Jersey Sunday to help the struggling and unpopular incumbent governor, Jon Corzine, who polls show is in a statistical dead heat with the Republican nominee, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie.

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http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/white-house-gears-up-for-disappointing-election-day.html