Since 1989, the party holding the White House has gone on to lose both the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. The streak goes back even further in Virginia, where the party holding the White House has gone to lose the gubernatorial race since 1977. [CNN]

Nobody expected a Democratic win in Virginia after Creigh Deeds sank like a stone in polls starting a couple of months ago. A late surge in polling made it look for a moment like Democrat Jon Corzine might salvage his race in NJ after being behind for months, but it was not to be.

There was one huge upset, though, in a race that received a ton of National attention, and which says a lot about the implosion of the Republican party. Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in NY-23, a district the Democrats haven’t won in over a century. This is not a vote of confidence in the Democrats, but it is a sign of how the right’s internal bickering is going to cause major problems for them if they can’t get it under control.

I wrote yesterday that hardline conservative activists shouldn’t look to NY-23 as a model for how to take over the GOP (more than they already have):

Here’s the thing: Hoffman will almost undoubtedly win the election in NY-23. But that doesn’t mean Republicans should look to NY-23 as a model for purging what moderation remains in the party. It’s easy to squelch individualism in a district that hasn’t voted Republican for a century; in other districts, it’s going to lead to a spate of conservative losses.

Well as it turns out, Hoffman didn’t even win. If he couldn’t pull it off, I would definitely suggest that fringe right-wing activists challenging moderate Republicans is not going to be a winning formula for the right in 2010.

One last point, as I’m sure I’ll hear it in the comments: Am I just trying to distract from a devastating Referendum on the Obama administration? (At least, that’s how I imagine it will be phrased). The answer is that all indications show this election had nothing to do with Obama. As I showed above, losses for the Dems in VA and NJ, while unfortunate, follow a trend that goes back several decades.

If that doesn’t convince you, let’s ask the voters:

…majorities of voters in both states (56 percent in Virginia and 60 percent in New Jersey) said President Obama was not a factor in their vote today. Those who said Mr. Obama was a factor in New Jersey divided as to whether their vote was a vote for the president (19 percent) or against him (19 percent). In Virginia, slightly fewer voters said their vote was for Mr. Obama (17 percent) than against him (24 percent).

So all in all, here’s the storyline from last night:

• Predictable losses for the Dems in NJ and VA.
• A surprising victory for a Dem in NY-23 that he should be able to hold on to for all of a year.
• A warning to the hard right — if you try to oust what remaining moderate Republicans there are, you may hand victories over to the Democrats instead.

There were two cases, though, where we’ll see ranked choice voting (i.e. Instant Runoff Voting) come into play, both involving the Park Board. In District 5, Carol Kummer and Jason Stone are nail-bitingly close. This one will be determined by 2nd-choice votes — in fact, it may even need to be decided by the 3rd-choice votes of those whose first choices were Barland and Looney.

Because Minneapolis voting machines could not be calibrated to tabulate anything other than the 1st-choice votes, the ballots will all need to be tabulated by hand, which means it will be some time before we know the winner of the Park Board race.

The other race that will take some time to shake out is the Park Board at-large race, in which none of the eight candidates for three positions received enough votes on the first ballot.

The mayoral race certainly didn’t lead to a surprise, as RT Rybak beat his nearest competitor by 63 percentage points among 1st-choice ballots.

Were the machines working?

How does turn-out compare to 2004 at your polling place?

GOTVing today? How’s it going?

What are your predictions?

Or share anything else that’s on your mind!

I just wish Dr. King could see this, he’d be so proud of all of us.

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty excited about the upcoming elections.  Heck, I even just changed our logo (only for this week) to reflect how nuts and exciting this cycle is.  And now we’re announcing the return of our popular elections site.  It’s still missing a couple items, but those should be coming shortly (Zack) and I just couldn’t wait to make it live, so now it is (you can see the new tab right below the logo up top).

Why an election site?  Well, primarily for election day.  If you come to the site this coming Tuesday anytime after 5PM, you’re going to see the results page of the election site instead of this, usual, frontpage.  We’ll be updating the results live as they come in and we have a notification system built in to the results page to allow us to announce news, call races, and fun stuff like that.  This provides you, our wonderful readers, with a one-stop scoreboard for all the hottest races this cycle.  What’s more, we’ll even be counting-down to a veto proof majority in the Minnesota house (if we get there) as the results of state house races come in.

We’re making the site live today because in addition to the main feature that is the results page, we have pages dedicated to each one of the races with summaries of the race, our takes on it, the latest polling for that race, the newest posts, and all the TV ads for the DFL candidate.  It’s a pretty cool little resources and I just wanted to share it with everyone.

Like everything else, the real fun will be on election day, but for now, enjoy.

This evening, if my wife should humor me I’ll be plopped in front of the computer watching the St. Paul Ward 1 and Ward 6 returns come in, where I am hoping for Melvin Carter and Pakou Hang, two great young DFL’ers to win, and the Duluth Mayors race, where I’m hoping for yet another great young DFLer, Donny Ness’s victory.

Around the country I’ll be looking at the Kentucky governors race and the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate.

The reason why I’ll be looking at the Kentucky Governors race is it could serve as a signal whether or not the Republican Culture of Corruption meme has hit it’s high water mark or if it is still resonating with voters. True, Ernie Fletcher (R), the current governor of Kentucky is in reality really really corrupt, and it may be the extravagance of his corruption that will do in his administration, but it’s still worth looking and analyzing to see if voters still feel that the Republican party has a credibility gap.

Every seat in the Virginia House of Delegates and State Senate is up for grabs this year and and these off year elections in Virginia are the lab in which new electoral and GOTV strategies are tested and refined before the next years national races. Look to see how immigration plays with voters in the state, and whether or not one or both houses switch to Democratic control.

So, St. Paul and Duluth readers, go vote! And check back to MNPublius for more information as we finish this cycle and really start next years!

Tennessee
Missouri
 Virginia

I’m not holding my breath, but Dems are leading all remaining three as of right now…..

“I have no interest in being minority leader”

Fine by us