The 2001 elections

The 2001 elections Beneath the national unity in the war against terrorism, an even partisan balance persists

The 2001 elections, Democrats have been spinning for weeks, are a harbinger of what will come in 2002 and 2004. Anticipating the victories they have now won in the races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats suggested that 2001 would show a weakening of the Republican Party and an inability by George W. Bush to translate his 85 percent-plus job approval rating into victories for Republican candidates. Now that we have the results, how valid are these claims?

Odd-year elections are a harbinger of off-year and presidential-year elections only when the issues and personalities in the odd-year elections are congruent with issues and personalities in the off-years and presidential years. Thus Republican Christie Whitman's defeat of Jim Florio in the 1993 New Jersey gubernatorial race showed that tax increases could hurt Democrats-as became apparent in 1994 gubernatorial and congressional elections. The elections of Republican Governors George Allen and Jim Gilmore in Virginia in 1993 and 1997 showed that stands against crime and against gun control (Allen promised to abolish parole and oppose gun control) and targeting obnoxious taxes (Gilmore promised to abolish the car tax, which in some areas was more than $1,000 annually) could win for Republicans, at least in culturally conservative states. Republicans have won victories on similar issues in elections since.

Tuesday, the Democrats failed to win the sweep they had hoped for when Republican nominee Michael Bloomberg beat Democrat Mark Green for mayor of New York. This was the big headline in national news, overshadowing the victories of Democratic gubernatorial candidates Jim McGreevey in New Jersey and Mark Warner in Virginia.

But neither Bloomberg's surprise victory nor the Democratic wins in New Jersey and Virginia show that the nation has moved significantly toward either party from the even balance apparent in the 2000 presidential election (48 percent to 48 percent) and the elections for the House in 1996, 1998, and 2000, in which Republicans led in popular vote by 49 percent to 48 percent. Beneath the national unity in the war against terrorism and the near-unanimous approval of Bush, the even partisan balance persists. Neither party has made significant progress toward a majority of 50-plus percent.

In Virginia's gubernatorial race, cable TV millionaire Warner spent some $20 million, adding $4 million of his own money in the final week, to defeat former Attorney General Mark Earley. This outcome had been long expected and was the result of a brilliant long-term strategy.

Warner has spent the past two years traveling to all corners of the state. He used his own money to set up funds to finance small businesses in Southwest Virginia and other economically lagging areas. He became well acquainted with local issues in areas where Allen and Gilmore had won big margins on cultural issues. He called himself a "conservative" and came out staunchly against further gun-control measures, and he even courted the National Rifle Association.

Earley had to fight for the nomination at the Republican state convention in June; he raised so little money that half or more of the funds expended on his behalf came from the Republican National Committee, and he never highlighted an issue as Allen did on parole and Gilmore did on the car tax.

What is surprising is not that Warner won but that the margin of victory wasn't bigger. He won by just 52 percent to 47 percent, far less than his margin in polls running up to the election. (Democrats had been hoping Warner would win by a double-digit margin.) This is a state George W. Bush carried 52 percent to 44 percent. Which is to say that Warner, for all his money and moderation, ran 8 points ahead of Al Gore, and Earley ran 5 points behind Bush.

Warner's victory proves that a conservatively inclined Democrat can be elected governor in a Southern state in which Republicans have become overconfident. But we already knew that. Democrats won similar victories in the races for governor in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina in 1998, in Mississippi in 1999, and in North Carolina in 2000. Warner's victory gives Democrats hope that they can win similar races in 2002. But there are few targets left: Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas. The issues and personalities in Virginia's governor's race are unlikely to be congruent with those in many congressional races in 2002 or in the presidential race in 2004.

Democrats tend to nominate liberal candidates even in Southern House districts, like the previously Democratic Fourth district of Virginia, where Louise Lucas lost to Republican Randy Forbes in a special June election. The Democrats are not likely to nominate an anti-gun- control presidential candidate in 2004.

In New Jersey, Democrat McGreevey won a bigger victory over Republican Bret Schundler-56 percent to 42 percent, with 98 percent of the precincts reporting. This is impressive, though less than the 61 percent to 37 percent margin by which Florio won the state in 1989. But the Schundler candidacy had serious problems.

He won an upset victory in the June primary over a machine-backed candidate, but machine Republican politicians, notably Acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco, refused to support him. His opposition to abortion and gun control were trumpeted by McGreevey and by the New York Times, whose dispatches sometimes seemed to be screeds against Schundler.

He had to scramble to raise the maximum allowed under New Jersey's public-financing law, and the Republican National Committee did not ante up enough for him to be a serious contender in a state where TV ads are the second- or third-most expensive in the nation (because you have to buy time on New York and Philadelphia stations, most of whose viewers are non-Jersey voters). New Jersey is a low-information state (those New York and Philly stations give little time to Jersey politics), and after September 11, Schundler had difficulty getting voters' attention.

Even so, the result did not produce evidence of a national trend toward Democrats. New Jersey went solidly for George H. W. Bush in 1988, but in 2000 it was so solidly Democratic that neither candidate targeted it. Gore carried the state by a 56 percent to 40 percent margin. That means that McGreevey, for all his advantages, ran even with Gore, while Schundler, for all his problems, ran 2 points ahead of George W. Bush. The New Jersey race is evidence that conservative positions on abortion and gun control are a handicap in Northern states dominated by major metropolitan areas.

But we already knew that. This may help Democrats in 2002 recapture governorships that have been held by Republicans, especially where the Republicans are divided or have grown complacent, as in Virginia and New Jersey.

But it's not likely to carry over into 2002 House races (where most Republicans whose districts are in major metropolitan areas have long since insulated themselves from Democratic attacks) or in 2002 Senate races (the only state that seems likely to have a seriously contested race is New Jersey, where Bob Torricelli's seat would be a given but for scandal charges pending against him).

Cross the river, and look at New York. Here was a result that seems obviously not a national harbinger. Republican nominee Bloomberg beat Democrat Green by 50 percent to 47 percent in a city that Gore carried by 78 percent to 16 percent, but no rational analyst would argue that Bloomberg's victory shows a surge for the national Republican Party in big cities. New York is sui generis, and Bloomberg was until recently a liberal Democrat and made no effort to show that his views on national issues had become more conservative.

He spent something on the order of $50 million of his own money on his campaign, and his support surged after he was endorsed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was already popular with a majority of New York voters before September 11 and who after September 11 has become the most widely admired political officeholder in America, with the possible exception of President Bush.

Still, Bloomberg's victory has possible relevance for future national politics, in two respects.

The first is the Giuliani factor. Without Giuliani's enthusiastic endorsement-which he didn't really get until the final weeks-Bloomberg would surely have lost.

Giuliani also helped Republican Earley in the unlikely setting of Virginia: Earley's only ad during the last five days of the campaign was an endorsement from Giuliani, and it may have helped push him up from the 40 percent or less he was getting in polls to the 47 percent he received on Election Day.

Previously, Virginia Republicans have tried to rally their conservative base with appeals on culturally conservative issues like abortion and gun control; this year they relied on a Republican who is against abortion restrictions and for gun controls and is a strong supporter of gay rights.

Schundler also ran a Giuliani spot, and that may have helped him up from the 33 percent he averaged in pre-election polls to the 42 percent he won. With Bush likely to be sidelined from active campaigning by his national responsibilities in the war against terrorism, which has bipartisan support, Giuliani is now the Republican Party's most popular political figure.

Republican candidates running in 2002 are probably already burning up the phone lines trying to get his endorsement. And what Democrat has a national job approval rating of 90 percent?

Giuliani could also reshape Republican presidential politics. Were the 2004 Republican nomination open, he would obviously be a serious contender. In the past, cultural conservatives, because of their great strength in Republican caucuses starting with Iowa and Republican primaries starting with South Carolina, have had a veto on the GOP nomination. But Giuliani, with his demonstrated strengths as a leader and his conservative stands on crime, welfare, and taxes, might well be able to win the votes of many who disagree with his views on issues like abortion, gun control, and gay rights.

It is a long time until the 2008 election, and admiration for Giuliani's performance after September 11 may wane. He may take on other assignments that would remove him from partisan politics-some national security experts would love to see him as CIA director-or he may simply withdraw from politics. But he could remain a national Republican of gigantic proportions.

The other interesting thing about the New York race is the Latino factor. Bloomberg won the Latino vote, apparently by about a 52 percent to 46 percent margin, about the same as the citywide vote. This was a striking breakthrough. Gore carried New York State's Latino vote by an 80 percent to 18 percent margin, and even Giuliani in 1997 won only 43 percent of the city's Latino vote. Bloomberg's strength here was partly a result of factors peculiar to this race. Green had won the October Democratic runoff against Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, who is of Puerto Rican background, with the help of fliers that tied Ferrer to publicity-hungry agitator Al Sharpton. Ferrer obviously resented his tactics and took some time before endorsing Green. Bloomberg's targeted mailings and phone calls undoubtedly played on Latinos' resentment of the anti-Ferrer campaign.

So Bloomberg's showing among New York Latinos is not proof of the national swing of Latinos to Republicans that Bush strategist Karl Rove has been trying to produce. But it is evidence that Latino voters, most of them new to the electorate, are by no means as strongly anchored to the Democratic Party as blacks have been since the 1960s. Further evidence comes from Houston, where Republican Councilman Orlando Sanchez won 41 percent of the vote to 43 percent for Democratic Mayor Lee Brown. The last poll before the election had Brown ahead 37 percent to 27 percent but showed Sanchez with a 44 percent to 40 percent lead in the runoff that is now required since neither candidate got 50 percent of the vote. This is a nonpartisan race, so the partisan implications are limited. But Sanchez's coalition of Latinos and whites resembles the coalition that gave a resounding majority to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in 1997. Latino voters do not seem to be wedded to the Democratic Party or to the left-wing views on issues shared by most black politicians and voters.

The signs of Latino movement toward Republicans remains the one significant exception to the overall pattern of no change in basic partisan patterns since the November 2000 election. That trend has clearly continued since September 11. In two special House elections in October, in Florida's heavily Republican First District (the western Panhandle) and heavily Democratic Massachusetts Ninth District (South Boston and suburbs), both parties' candidates in both races ran within 2 percent of the vote their parties' presidential candidates received in November 2000. Neither of these races was seriously contested, but the results suggest that the remarkable stasis of party preference continues. Beneath the national unity in the war on terrorism, Americans are still divided, though perhaps not so bitterly divided on the cultural issues and, to a lesser extent, the economic issues that produced the equal-size constituencies for the two major parties in the 2000 presidential elections and the House elections since 1996. September 11 may also have created a pro-incumbent bias in voters-a proposition not tested in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York, where no incumbents were running-which will tend to help Republicans in the 2002 House elections and, to a lesser extent, Democrats in the 2002 Sen ate elections. And of course, if this mood continues-a big if-it should help Bush in 2004.

After hearing McCain tonight on Hardball say that the Republicans lost Virginia and NJ because they ran as conservatives I've come to the conclusion that the so-called "big tent" does not allow room for me.

The sooner all conservatives realize that the National Republican Party does not want them (or they want us only for our money) the sooner we can form a formidable Conservative Party.

Even the Republican Congressional Election Committee issued a statement today criticizing Schundler for not running more to the left or bringing the NJ Repubs together.

I am totally embarassed to be a Republican these days.

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