Members of the Blue Dog Coalition, fiscally-conservative Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, have said that they were “choked blue” by their “extreme” party mates. After the 2010 Mid-term Elections, the Blue Dogs of the 111th Congress might feel as though they were allowed to be hit by a car by the Nancy Pelosi-helmed Democratic Party.Blue Dogs were particularly vulnerable to the Republican onslaught, as they were forced to cast controversial votes on issues including health care reform and stimulus/bailouts; and, indeed, the Blue Dog Coalition was decimated by a strong Tea Party-led electorate, returning only 28 of 54 members. The moderate Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas was turned out by voters, as well.
The Tea Party helped to propel Republicans to Senatorial gains in Florida (Marco Rubio), Indiana (Dan Coats), Kentucky (Rand Paul), Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey), and Wisconsin (Ron Johnson). President Obama’s former Senate seat was turned over to the GOP, as Mark Kirk, a moderate Republican generally not supported by the Tea Party, defeated Democratic challenger Alexi Giannoulias.
The GOP gain of six seats in the Senate is greater than the 3.5 averaged in midterm elections since World War II, but is two shy of what the Republicans were able to achieve in the 1994 Conservative Ascendency. Not including incomplete returns, the Republican Party has gained at least 60 seats in the House of Representatives to take that body back; in doing so, they erased Democratic gains in the wave elections of 2006 and 2008.
The Tea Party candidates portrayed as too socially conservative tended to be defeated by Democrats. Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell came off as flaky, with past TV clips in which she passionately advocated an ardently Christian view of abstinence, and claimed, “I dabbled in witchcraft.” Sexist innuendos, sexual rumors, and a liberal body of voters caused O’Donnell to lose in a landslide-by 17 points to Democrat Chris Coons.
Colorado Republican Senate also-ran and Tea Party favorite Ken Buck, who had led for most of the race, once said that he didn’t believe in abortion, even for the “exceptions of rape or incest.” Sharron Angle proved to be an exceptionally weak candidate, losing to the much maligned Democratic Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Republican John Raese of West Virginia lost in a election in which Joe Manchin, the state’s very popular sitting governor, outflanked Raese to the right on issues like healthcare reform and a cap-and-trade carbon tax.
In a stunning defeat, Alaska Republican Joe Miller lost to a write-in candidate, the Independent Republican Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski, the scion of an Alaskan political dynasty, had a strong electoral apparatus that passed out wristbands bearing the name “Murkowski,” so that voters could correctly spell, on the write-in line, the Senator’s name. She is only the second write-in candidate to win a major national office; Strom Thurman (Dixiecrat from South Carolina) did so by winning a Senate seat in 1954.
Democrats had strong showings on the West Coast and in the Northeast. Incumbents from California (Barbara Boxer), Oregon (Ron Wyden), and Washington (Patty Murray) all won reelection. California Governor-elect Jerry Brown, the wily veteran, reclaims the post he held from 1975 to 1983. He defeated Republican newcomer Meg Whitman, the former CEO of Ebay, who had self-funded her campaign to the tune of $140 Million.
Throughout the Northeast, Democrats held Senate seats in Connecticut (Richard Blumenthal), Delaware (Chris Coons), New York (Charles Schumer, and, in a Special Election, Kirsten Gillibrand), and Vermont (Patrick Leahy). Republican Kelly Ayotte held the New Hampshire Senate seat vacated by the retiring Judd Gregg.
Locally, Republican Steve Chabot reclaimed the Ohio 1st District over incumbent Steve Driehaus. Jean Schmidt won her fourth term as Republican Representative of Ohio’s 2nd District, in a walk over Democrat Surya Yalamanchili. House Speaker-in-Waiting John Boehner won his safe Ohio 8th District and has never tallied below 64 percent of the vote since first being elected in 1990.
Former Ohio 2nd Congressman Rob Portman won the Ohio Senate race, holding the seat vacated by the retiring George Voinovich, for Republicans. Incumbent Democratic Governor Ted Strickland lost his bid for reelection to former Congressman John Kasich.
Overall, the GOP gained six gubernatorial seats and will hold 29 state executive seats going into the 2012 General Election cycle. This is advantageous because governors are able to marshal in-state resources for their Presidential candidate.
This mid-term was also fortuitous for Republicans, as they picked up 680 State Legislature seats, compared to 472 seats from the 1994 GOP wave. They control both chambers in 25 state legislatures; in 15 they control the governorship as well.
The timing of this GOP tsunami is particularly devastating for Democrats: with control, complete control in some cases, of the redistricting process, Republicans will almost certainly gerrymander districts and cement their majority in the House for the coming decade.