I've been surfing around, looking for election results I missed on Tuesday night, and the level of Democratic strength is remarkable. Even in the South, where they posted the fewest big wins, there were some victories. They've put prominent people on the statewide bench in Florida (Alex Sink is the new Chief Financial Officer) and Alabama (Jim Folsom, Jr. is once again Lt. Governor), and though they were unsuccessful in the big races in South Carolina, some of those were oddly close. And in some state they wins were huge. In Oklahoma the Democrats won all of the statewide races with maybe one exception (is Corporation Commissioner a statewide office? they won everything else), and they won every statewide office in Arkansas. And of course they posted a significant 5 seat gain in the Texas House. It truly was a national wave.
Posted by armand at November 9, 2006 07:47 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politicsgetting within two of the Pa house, with two seats still undeclared, is no mean feat either.
Posted by: moon at November 9, 2006 09:11 PM | PERMALINKAnd there was the highest turnout of young people in ages, which is a hopeful sign.
Posted by: binky at November 9, 2006 09:20 PM | PERMALINKHas anyone found a good source on who voted? Turnout numbers, demographics, exit poll stuff ...
And of course though I was talking about the South above, the same holds true for most every region of the country. For example, Minnesota - where the incumbent Republican governor barely held onto office, but every other Republican statewide office was defeated.
Posted by: Armand at November 9, 2006 10:10 PM | PERMALINKI saw some, but didn't save. MYDD has all the usual suspects below the blogroll. The NYT has this "portrait of the electorate."
Posted by: binky at November 9, 2006 10:51 PM | PERMALINKwell of course the dems were succesfull largely because they ran right leaning senate candidates in virginia, montana and pennsylvania moved to. and of course without even just one of those seats it would have been the first time in history that the Congress changed hands without the Senate. the number of succesfull gay marriage bans and the senate race in Connecticut tells you all you need to know about America's drift to the right. Given the handicap of the war, the Republicans' self inflicted wounds (scandal and campaign blunders)and Bush's refusal to make the change at the pentagon before the election, what is most striking is that the democrats did not win more seats.
Posted by: Go blue at November 12, 2006 02:00 PM | PERMALINKI can't begin to imagine how one would consider John Tester (the new senator from Montana) to be "right-leaning". And the interesting thing about the marriage bans is (again) that the ones that win win by smaller margins than they used to - and one even lost this one (and another almost did). There appears to be a drift on that issue - but not to the right.
Posted by: Armand at November 12, 2006 04:26 PM | PERMALINK