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INTERACTIVE REPORTVictories Give Republicans Cause For HopeDemocrats Will Need To Find A Way To Motivate Obama Supporters Next Year To Avoid More LossesStory By James A. Barnes, Interactive Graphic By Charlie SzymanskiPresident Obama's last-minute stumping for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) could not save him from losing to Republican Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney. And the political apparatus that the president established in Virginia last year, winning its presidential primary and then carrying the state in the general election for a Democrat for the first time since 1964, didn't keep Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds from being swamped by Republican state Attorney General Bob McDonnell in Virginia's gubernatorial contest.
Still, it would be a stretch to assume that the Republican victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races are a referendum on Obama or even a harbinger of hard times for the Democrats. [more...]

Stumping for Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey on the Sunday before 2009's off-year elections, President Obama sounded almost as if he were defending himself as much as Corzine.

Urging the crowd in solidly Democratic Camden to turn out to vote for their beleaguered governor, the president likened the attacks on Corzine to those he has faced himself. "It wasn't [as] a consequence of Obama policies or Corzine policies that we went into this [economic] hole," the president told his receptive audience. "And, I've been saying all over the country, I don't think it's right for those who helped get us into this mess to be somehow standing back and saying, 'Well, why haven't you fixed it?' "

A few hours later in Newark, he repeated those points and reminded supporters that the economy cannot be revived in an instant. "When I ran for election, I did not say this was going to come overnight," the president declared. "I didn't say this was going to be easy."

But on Election Day, Obama's army did not swarm over the precincts in New Jersey or Virginia, where Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds had hoped to succeed the president's good friend, Gov. Tim Kaine. Many voters' patience appeared to have come to an end. The National Election Pool exit poll asked people how worried they were about the direction of the national economy over the next year. In both states, the verdict was decisive. In New Jersey, 56 percent were "very worried," and 61 percent of that group voted for Republican Chris Christie. In Virginia, 53 percent were "very worried," and by a ratio of more than 3-to-1, those voters opted for the Republican nominee, former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell.

"This is a warning to the White House that jobs and the economy are the No. 1 issue in the forefront of Americans' minds," said Penny Lee, a former executive director of the Democratic Governors Association.

The county returns in New Jersey were like a one-two punch to Corzine. In such Democratic strongholds as Camden, Essex (Newark), and Hudson (Jersey City), Corzine's margins of victory shrank from what they were in 2005. In solidly middle-class and Republican-leaning Monmouth, Morris, and Ocean counties, voters delivered higher-than-normal margins for the Republican at the top of the ticket. Even suburban giant Middlesex County, which had been trending Democratic and which Corzine carried by more than 32,000 votes in 2005, gave Christie a victory margin of almost 5,000.

Virginia's results were even more disheartening for Democrats, starting with the dramatic swing in Fairfax County, which had been a growing bulwark for the party. In 2005, Kaine carried Fairfax by more than 60,000 votes on his way to capturing the governorship. But this year, McDonnell managed to win the county by some 5,000 votes.

In the exurban counties of Washington that now extend well beyond the Beltway, McDonnell crushed Deeds by about 2-to-1. The GOP nominee trampled over the footholds that Kaine and Obama established when they carried Loudoun and Prince William counties. McDonnell racked up winning percentages that were even better than President Bush's re-election performance.

What's more, McDonnell virtually swept the rural western and central portions of the state, except for a handful of counties around Deeds's state Senate district, and he carried the Tidewater region, which includes Newport News, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach and has suburbs that are battlegrounds much like those in Northern Virginia.

Although Obama was unable to mobilize his supporters the way he did just a year ago, that may not have been much of a reflection on him. The Democratic standard-bearers in New Jersey and Virginia were hardly ideal candidates: Pre-election polls had Corzine's job-disapproval rating hovering around 55 percent, and Deeds struggled to define himself on taxes and transportation, and at times distanced himself from the president.

The turnout among younger voters, a mainstay of the Obama coalition, was down in both states. According to the NEP exit poll, in the 2008 presidential election, 17 percent of New Jersey voters were 18 to 29 years old, and in Virginia, that cohort made up 21 percent of the electorate. But this year, younger voters were just 9 percent of the electorate in New Jersey and 10 percent in Virginia.

The share of registered voters who showed up in Virginia dipped to about 40 percent, although that figure was deflated by the surge in voter registration that came with the 2008 presidential race. In New Jersey, turnout was about 44 percent and was similarly affected by the jump in registration in 2008. In both states, the number of voters who went to the polls was about equal to that of four years ago.

Although some recent national polls have put Republican Party identification at a historic low, the partisan makeup of the electorate in Virginia and New Jersey was more Republican than last year. In Virginia's 2008 election, 39 percent of voters identified themselves as Democrats, while 33 percent called themselves Republicans and 27 percent identified as independents or something else. On Tuesday, 37 percent identified themselves as Republicans, and only 33 percent labeled themselves Democrats. Thirty percent called themselves independents or something else. In New Jersey, the partisan shifts were less dramatic. In the presidential election, 44 percent of those who voted identified themselves as Democrats; in the governor's race, it was 41 percent. Those who labeled themselves Republicans edged up to 31 percent this year from 28 percent in 2008. The portion who identified as independents or something else was unchanged at 28 percent.

Christie compensated for his partisan deficit by capturing the vote of independents, 60 percent to 30 percent. In the presidential election, Obama narrowly won New Jersey's independents, taking 51 percent. Virginia's independents also gravitated to the GOP standard-bearer: 66 percent cast their ballots for McDonnell. In 2008, Obama edged Republican John McCain among independents, 49 percent to 48 percent.

"I do think these independents out there are fickle," said Democratic strategist Lee. "It's going to be interesting to see who has the power of persuasion next year. Whichever party it is, it'll be over pocketbook issues."