2009 Elections Don’t Mean a Thing

[struggle4progress]

Posted on Nov 3, 2009
By Ruth Marcus

Advice to readers about the coming orgy of analysis about the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections: Ignore it. Disquisitions on The Meaning of It All for President Obama or the 2009 results as a harbinger for Congress in 2010 have scant basis in reality ...

In the 15 gubernatorial elections since 1949, the voters of New Jersey and Virginia have chosen governors belonging to the same party 10 times (seven Democrats, three Republicans). In five of those 10 elections, the party winning both governorships went on to pick up seats in the House and Senate the next year. In three, a sweep of the statehouses augured precisely the opposite result in the subsequent congressional election. Once, Democrats won both governors’ races and went on to get a split result (losing seats in one house, gaining them in another). Once, the same thing happened to Republicans. Not a particularly compelling pattern.

Nor does it help to expand the field to examine the consequences of a split result. That’s happened five times since 1949 (three times with a Democrat winning Virginia and a Republican taking New Jersey; twice the other way around). Three times Democrats have picked up seats the next year, twice the party has lost seats.

Does it make any difference which state the Republican (or Democratic) winner is from? Not really. Of the three times a Democrat won in Virginia while a Republican was elected in New Jersey, Democrats won seats twice and lost seats once. In the two split verdicts in which the Republican took the Virginia statehouse while the Democrat won New Jersey’s, Democrats — you guessed it — won seats once and lost seats once ...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091103_2009_elections_dont_mean_a_thing/

[robinlynne]

1. ok, I'm dizzy.

[kickysnana]

2. Except to Gay folks in Maine. n/t

[struggle4progress]

3. The article concerns the "orgy of analysis about .. New Jersey and Virginia"

The only reference to Maine is As Maine goes, so goes the nation, the saying goes. This is, unfortunately, probably accurate: Maine retained civil unions while rejecting marriage, while is entirely consistent with the October Pew poll showing that a majority of Americans support civil unions but a majority opposes marriage -- a situation usually confirmed by local and regional polls