It looks like Bob McDonnell is running ahead of George Allen’s tally in 1993 when that good man enjoyed the largest margin of any Republican in the history of the Commonwealth.

UPDATE: McDonnnell won Fairfax County by a whisker, 51-49. This is a very big deal, very big.

Despite the millions he spent in trashing the Republican, he’s remarkably gracious in defeat.

He’s praising labor unions now. If he weren’t for them, would he have cracked 40% of the vote?

With Chris Christie’s victory in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, we hereby pronounce that Obamacare is undeniably and reliably dead.

UPDATE: I may be Mayor of the gay conservative city in the county of the land of blogs, but it seems that a few coroners have thoroughly examined Obamacare and have averred it’s not only merely dead, it’s really most sincerely dead:

BYRON YORK: In Virginia and New Jersey, Health Care Was A Losing Issue.

Dick Morris: A Deathblow To ObamaCare.

This is a day of independence for us and our descendants!  Let the joyous news be spread!  A government attempt to overhaul healthcare at last is dead!

Wonder how much Corzine paid per vote?

FoxNews follows suit.

It doesn’t look likes it’s going to be close. And what does that say when a Democratic President made multiple stops to a Democratic State for a Democratic Governor and the Republican wins?

Corzine running about 13 points behind where Obama ran in the state last year.

This is huge, fellas, huge, HUGE, HUGE!

Time for a Victory March

BULLETIN: Associated Press has called the NJ Governors race for Christie at 10:07PM.

It sure looks that way.   At 9:45PM with nearly 60% of the vote in, Christie is up 50% to 43% over Corzine.  Daggett is polling below 6%.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  Everything I’m reading suggests Christie may pull this off.  I’m going to be doing some number crunching in second, but here’s just  one  piece of encouraging news from Jim Geraghty:

This looks big: With 100 percent of precincts reported, Republican Chris Christie has won New Jersey’s Gloucester County by about 2800 votes, a county that Christie Whitman lost in her 1997 reelection bid.

UP-UPDATE (from Dan): Ok, at 7:12 PST, 10:12 PST, I concluded some number crunching based on some exit poll data and came up with Christie ending up with 49.43% of the vote. That means, if Daggett holds at 5 points, the Republican wins by a comfortable margin.

Obama carried this county by 12 percent last year.

. . .  for only the second time in the history of the Commonwealth.

I am with Jim Geraghty on this one, preempting the networks.

UPDATE:  FoxNews makes it official!

UPDATE (from Bruce):  Now the question is — will the GOP take command of the VA Legislature?

UP-UPDATE (from Dan):  Jennifer Rubin indicates that the GOP will pick up at least one seat.

I figured we should have an open comment thread tonight.  I’ll update important races as needed.

Right now at 7:15PM, polls in Virginia have closed.  No news organizations have projected a winner….. yet.

UPDATE (from Dan):  This looks like a good sign for the GOP in VA:

Interviews with voters leaving polling stations in Virginia showed that independents — the crown jewel of elections because they often determine outcomes — broke heavily for Republican Bob McDonnell, fleeing Democrat R. Creigh Deeds.

UP-UPDATE (from Dan):  Watching the VA results on the bottom of the screen on FoxNews. All three Republicans on the statewide ticket lead by margins of about 2-1.  but, as I recall from my days in Virginia rural precincts report first, with Democratic strongholds in the north often late to tally their votes.

UPDATE (from Bruce): Does anyone think that they WOULDN’T be calling Virginia by now if Deeds were winning the real vote margin that McDonnell is at this point?  Sheesh!

7:59PM – FOX NEWS PROJECTS BOB MCDONNELL WINS VIRGINIA

8:04PM - Via Twitter:  New Jersey exit polls show Christie crushed Corzine 58-33 w/ independents. Enough to pad his lead? http://tinyurl.com/yldzqod

AND CNN continues to repeat spin of left-wing blogosphere: Divided Republicans hope for big victories in Virginia, New Jersey.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicates timetable for health care may slip.

Last fall, Democrat Barack Obama won the presidential election with 52.87% of the popular vote to Republican John McCain’s 45.60%.  In the Commonwealth of Virginia, Obama’s share of the popular vote was nearly identical to his national take, 52.63% (a difference of less than 1/4 of 1%).  McCain did a little better in the Old Dominion, but not by much (46.33%), than he did nationwide.

In New York’s 23rd congressional district, Obama also ran slightly below his national total, capturing 52% of the vote.

Given how closely Virginia’s vote mirrored the national vote, it’s no wonder Hugh Hewitt called the Commonwealth’s elections “the key story tonight.”  While Virginia has long been a Republican stronghold, the only Southern state in 1976 to vote for Jerry Ford over the South’s native son Jimmy Carter, it has being trending Democratic in recent years, electing Democrats in the past two gubernatorial elections.  Both its Senators belong to the president’s party.

With the growth of the federal government in recent years, more federal employees have been buying homes in Northern Virginia, making, Fairfax, the Commonwealth’s largest county, reliably Democrat.  Should Republican Bob McDonnell poll well there tonight, it will be a real sign of a revitalized GOP.  

Not just that, given that a lot of Congressfolk (and their staffs) make their homes in Northern Virginia, a strong McDonnell showing might spook Washington Democrats.

With Virginia’s tally last fall mirroring the national tally, a sign of Democratic erosion here would clearly indicate that Obama’s margin in 2008 had more to do with the dynamics of that election than with an ideological realignment of American voters.

The mainstream media has pretty much missed the biggest story about the energy on the right not just in the fall campaigns concluding with today’s elections, but since the first tea party took place sometime last February.

So committed are they to pushing the narrative of an attempted coup by social conservative extremists that they’ve missed the real story, a grassroots uprising against increased federal spending.  Frank Rich’s rant this past Sunday was emblematic of that ignorance, albeit a quite extreme emblem.

Hugh thinks Democrats are focusing on internecine warfare on the right to deflect attention from Democratic losses:

The idea of a GOP “civil war” is suddenly all the rage among Beltway-Manahttan media elites, for the very obvious reason is that it gives them something to discuss other than Virginia. Democratic spokesmen on the networks tonight –think Paul Begala– will be looking for anything to divert attention from the expected blowout in Virginia. . . .  No matter how much noise the talking heads make about anything else, the key story tonight is Virginia

I agree.  In my next post, I’ll explore just why Virginia is the key story in terms of finding a larger meaning in election results.  For now, I want to focus on the real issue driving grassroots activism on the right:  federal spending.

Indeed, spending’s the issue which sunk Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd congressional district.  Over at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg posts an e-mail he received from Steve Horwitz, who teaches economics at St. Lawrence University:

I live in NY 23 and you are exactly right about it being Republican not conservative.  I think you and others are also right in noting that what really got people upset about Scozzafava was not her social liberalism per se, but that in combination with her moderate-to-liberal views on economic issues.  The real rebellion here is a Tea Party rebellion:  people are just tired of spending and debt and that is what motivated the conservatives to run Hoffman. 

Interesting counter-factual:  suppose Scozzafava was still pro-choice and pro-SSM but anti-stimulus and had a better record on tax-and-spend issues.  I think we would not have seen the Hoffman candidacy and I think she would have won the seat fairly easily. 

Emphasis added.  I don’t think this evidence though will dissuade many in the MSM to move from the preferred narrative.  If they really want to understand what’s going on on the right, indeed, what’s being going on on the right at least since 2006, they have to appreciate the salience of the spending issue.  

The ideas expressed on various tea party web-sites, the signs at the rallies, the rhetoric of the speakers indicates that they’re upset about the growth in federal spending.  And if the media were doing their job, reporting the news instead of trying to portray conservatives according to their prejudices, they might see it as well.

As the Golden State continues to shed jobs, you’d think our representatives in Washington would seek to avoid policies which could further damage the state’s fragile economy.  But, not our junior Senator, Ma’am Barbara Boxer.

This lady just can’t seem to learn from her past mistakes.  She promised us the “so-called stimulus” would great jobs.  One in eight Californians are out of work, a higher percentage than at any point since World War II .  And now, she’s pushing ahead with her climate control scheme, not even waiting for a “full economic analysis of the proposal.”

I guess she just don’t think 12.7% unemployment in Los Angeles County is high enough.

No, I’m not talking about New Jersey Democrats’ strategy to use indpendent Chris Daggett as a stalking horse for their candidate, incumbent Governor Jon Corzine.

Seems Garden State Democrats are using gang members to rustle up the vote for their ticket.

(H/t Jim Geraghty.)

With the Siena poll showing nearly one in five (18%) of voters in New York’s 23rd congressional district undecided, a strong trend toward Democrat Bill Owens could help him eke out a a victory. But, the small turnout at his rally with the Vice President suggests voters aren’t too fired up about the Democratic candidate–or the Democratic Vice President (or just that the Democrats did a lousy job publicizing the event which suggests they may not have a good ground game prepared for tomorrow).

Given that the Hoffman campaign has generated a lot of enthusiasm, we can be sure their voters will turn out today, but will their enthusiasm be contagious.  If so, look for a big victory tonight.

In New Jersey, if the undecideds break according to the traditional pattern, that is, against the incumbent (and so in large enough numbers to make up for the votes made up by Democrat/ACORN/SEIU shenanigans) Christie should carry the day.  He could also be helped by supporters of independent Chris Daggett deciding, at the last minute, to switch their support to the Republican, the Corzine challenger with the best shot at unseating the unpopular incumbent.

Note this chart from Pollster.com‘s roundup of polls showing that Daggett peaked a few days ago and has been on a steady downward trend ever since.  At the same time, Christie has reversed his decline and been on a steady upward trend perfectly paralleling that of incumbent Jon Corzine (hence its difficulty to see).

Since he and Corzine are advancing at the same rate, that suggest late deciders may break evenly for the two major party candidates. (more…)

In a Democratic state, running against a lackluster Republican opponent and with a war chest filled with twice as much lucre as both his opponents combined, with multiple visits by the charismatic President of the United States, Democrat incumbent Jon Corzine has resorted to playing dirty chests while corrupt organizations try to manufacture a few votes to help him retain his lease on Drumthwacket–and give Democrats something to crow about on Wednesday.

In order to divide the vote of those opposed to the unpopular Democrat, his fellow partisans have all but made independent candidate Chris Daggett into a stalking horse for the incumbent.  They’re making robocalls to voters, trashing Chris Christie, the only candidate with a chance of unseating the Democrat, urging them to vote instead for Daggett.

And now, we’ve got “ACORN on the scene.”

GOP officials recently received a phone tip from a hospital in Newark, reporting that people in ACORN t-shirts were in the facility signing up and collecting absentee ballots. New Jersey law allows anyone to take up to 10 absentee ballots at a time. The tipster reported seeing individuals in the ACORN shirts entering the hospital with blank absentee ballots and leaving with completed ballots.

There are reports out of Camden, New Jersey that voters are discovering that absentee ballots have already been submitted under their name. They did not authorize these ballots. Early reports suggested that the number of absentee ballots ‘requested’ in Camden city is higher than in any previous election. This will no doubt spark confusion on election day.

And not just a little bit higher:

Victor Negron, a campaign adviser for independent mayoral candidate Roberto Feliz, a former director of Camden’s public works department, says he’s shocked that more than fifteen times the normal number of voters are casting absentee ballots in Camden this year. (more…)

Nine months ago, California’s junior Senator heralded Senate passage of the “so-called stimulus,” claiming:

There is a very simple, urgent reason for this bill: We need to save jobs and we need to create jobs.  We need to act quickly and boldly because at the rate we are shedding jobs, we are heading into deeper economic turmoil.

Well, Ma’am, you passed that “stimulus,” putting the nation ever deeper in debt, with Los Angeles employers continuing to shed jobs:

Despite Los Angeles County’s already record high unemployment, the job outlook is likely to get worse as the number of businesses that plan to layoff workers has more than doubled since last year, according to a new poll released today.

A survey by the Los Angeles County Business Federation says 33 percent of respondents said they would layoff workers in 2010, up from 14 percent who were asked last year.

Given that “96 percent of businesses are small,” I’m wondering if Mrs. Boxer has any plans to reduce the regulatory burden, a burden which hits smaller businesses much harder than it does larger corporations.

While we need a plan that reduces regulations, the plan Mrs. Boxer’s working on will increase the costs of business, leading to even further job losses.  Guess she doesn’t think a 12.7% unemployment rate in LA County is high enough.

Politico has a fascinating story of the lengths to which Democrats went to secure Dede Scozzafava’s endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district tomorrow.  The effort in involved the White House Chief of Staff, New York State’s senior senator, the Speaker of the New York Assembly, the chair of the state Democratic Party and other heavy hitters.  They even dispatched a Long Island Democratic Congressman to the district to meet with the one-time Republican candidate.

Yet, if the latest polls are to be believed, it doesn’t seem to have made much difference.  One poll has the Conservative up by 5 points.  Another has up him by 17.

And this must be causing a lot of angst in the West Wing.  Because it’s pretty clear that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was behind his boss’s choice to tap then-Congressman John McHugh as Army Secretary, making his seat ripe for Democratic picking:

Obama won NY-23 last year by five points. So in an open seat race this year, a Democrat should have a good shot. Indeed, that’s precisely why Obama plucked the popular Republican incumbent from the seat to be his Army secretary — Rahm thought it was a likely pick-up. 

With Dede’s endorsement, that task seemed easier.  But, should the Democrat now lose, the White House will have major egg on its face, particularly as Administration officials decrying Hoffman’s success as a sign of the extremism of and rise of the “absolutists” in the GOP.

Seems citizens of this district won by Obama prefer extreme absolutists to the Administration’s man.

Rahm Emanuel may be crowing about locking down the Scozzafava endorsement, but he may not realize  that people don’t always respond to the type of back room political deals he orchestrates.  Chicago politics don’t play all that well in rural strongholds.  Just by securing a candidate’s endorsement doesn’t mean you win all her voters.

His strategy of padding the Democratic majority appears to be backfiring.

Of course the polls could be wrong.

If Republicans did this, it would make headlines all over showing the kind of dirty politics these angry white men play in order to keep their hold on power.  Jim Geraghty reports that, “Democrats have so much of a vested interest in independent Christopher Daggett splitting the anti-incumbent vote that they are putting resources into promoting him.”

The Democratic State Committee now admits paying for a robocall to Somerset County voters that slams Republican Chris Christie and promotes independent gubernatorial candidate Christopher Daggett.

A Democratic spokeswoman says the party’s chairman, Joe Cryan, was not aware of the robocalls when he denied that the state committee had anything to do with them yesterday afternoon.

If this gets out, it can only help Chris Christie, but the question is whether or not New Jersey (as well as Philadelphia and New York) media will pick this up.

This news merely confirms something I mentioned as just reported in a previous post.  Seems like Democrats are pulling every tactic from their bag of tricks to pull out a victory in the Garden State.  And Obama’s right there elbow-to-elbow with the New Jersey Governor who has presided over a meltdown of his state’s economy since taking office four years ago.

Guess that “new kind of politics” Obama promised in his campaign last year is just making Chicago politics national.

UPDATE: “It speaks volumes that the Democratic party in New Jersey feels the best use of their resources is to promote a third-party’s candidate instead of their own.”  Ditto that.

As I will doubtless repeat ad nauseum in the coming days in response to the endlessly biased coverage of the Tea Party movement and the related grassroots enthusiasm for Doug Hoffman’s Conservative candidacy in New York’s 23rd congressional district. the one thing missing from (most) media coverage is an appreciation for the resilience of the ideas which animated the rise of Ronald Reagan, an opposition to the seemingly endless growth of the federal government.

Even Barack Obama recognized the resilience of Reagan’s ideas.  He regularly reminded voters that he supported a “net spending cut,” emphasizing, in the third debate, his concern for fiscal prudence:

What I want to emphasize, though, is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.

Seems, however, that when GOP county leaders in upstate New York were looking for a candidate in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district, they attributed Obama’s election not to his campaign rhetoric, but to his actions once in office.

Which leads me to repeat the question I asked in my very first post on this election: Do GOP Leaders Get that Fiscal Conservatism is a Winning Issue?

For the left to spin the Scozzafava meltdown as a sign of  Republicans making moderates feel unwelcome in the party, they must ignore several facts about her nomination and the support she received from local and national units of the GOP.  After county GOP chairs in upstate New York tapped the liberal Assemblywoman as the Republican candidate, the RNC and NRCC readily rallied to her cause, sending in money to the campaign and staffers to the districtsd.

The GOP sunk nearly one million smackers into her campaign coffers.

So, clearly the party establishment was really to rally round a “moderate.”  It’s the grassroots that revolted.

But, would the grassroots have revolted had Ms. Scozzafava been a “moderate” of the Giuliani school, liberal on social issues, conservative on fiscal and national security ones?  Or, how would a Cheney-like candidate have fared, conservative on all issues, but gay ones?

Having followed the tea party movement and participated in some of its rallies, I believe we’d be looking at an entirely different race today had Dede Scozzafava been a “moderate” of the Giuliani-Cheney school.  Had she embraced the ideas of the tea party protests and stood strong against the spendthrift “so-called stimulus,” the tea party activists wouldn’t have protested her candidacy.

As I’ve said before, it’s the federal spending, stupid.

Maine is no longer the bellwether she once was in the Nineteenth Century, but should voters in the Pine Tree State vote down a “citizens’ veto” of legislation recognizing gay marriage (that the elected legislature passed and the elected Governor signed), it could signal a shift in popular attitudes toward gay marriage.  To be sure, few polls have shown any significant trends in favor of gay marriage in the past three or four years.

However, the recent Gallup poll showing that Americans are becoming increasingly conservative also found that attitudes toward gay marriage “have stayed about the same since 2008.”  There may  not be a movement toward state-recognized same-sex marriage, but there certainly isn’t a return to the overwhelming opposition we saw in the 1990s.

I had assumed that, without a state Supreme Court decision for gay marriage opponents to rail against, citizens of Maine would not feel disenfranchised by their state’s manner of recognizing same-sex marriages and they would veto the veto.  The polls though show a very tight race, with the latest indicating a narrow victory for Question 1, “which would reverse the state’s law legalizing same sex marriage”

At 51-47 it’s within the margin of error but there has been slight movement in support of the question since a PPP poll two weeks ago showed it knotted up at 48.

As Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling wrote, “It’s just going to come down to which side does the better job of getting its people out.”  I don’t know what kind of ground game those opposing the initiative have put together.  If it’s anything like their efforts last fall in the Golden State, things don’t look good for those who seeking to uphold the legislature’s action.

Given the number of signatures gathered by opponents of the legislation (they gathered twice as many as needed), those favoring Question 1 clearly are fired up and are certain to vote.

All that said, I don’t have much information on the ground game of those opposing the initiative.  If they’ve learned from the mistakes made last fall in the Prop 8 battle in California, then we’re in for a long night in the Pine Tree State.  We could see the first defeat of a measure seeking to limit marriage (for state purposes) to its traditional meaning.

But, I wouldn’t bet on it.