2010 Mid-Term Elections Review

Well, not too bad a prediction job by The Voting Booth.

We called the Senate final tally on the button 51(+2) - 47. We were a little bit low on the number of seats Republicans would take in the House. We said 55 and they have picked up 60 to date with a few more seats still being determined by recounts.

Definitely a wave election or at least a swinging of the pendulum back to somewhere around the levels prior to the 2006 & 2008 elections. The Senate is still a little more Democratic than prior to the 2008 elections, but is a little more Republican than prior to the 2006 elections. 2012 shapes up to be a very interesting election on all fronts.

First, a congratulations to the Republican Party. Just two years ago, it seemed more likely that the party would be disbanded than that they would take back the House and make major gains in the Senate. Republicans are just better at the political game than Democrats. Occasionally, in situations like 2008, the Dems can message and GOTV equal to or better than the Republicans they have a registration advantage over. However, 2010 proved to be a storm too big for a good GOTV hampered by horrible messaging.

As in most election years, if the economy is an issue, it will bury the party in power. Combined with a mid-term trend away from the party in power probably explains 50-75% of the outcome. Regardless of what they did, there was no way Democrats were going to lose less than 30-40 seats in the House or less than 3-4 seats in the Senate. The remaining difference was created by a brutal, ruthless and persistent messaging from Republicans starting from when they got their breathe back in early 2009. True, it was filled with fact stretches and outright lies (see Death Panels, "useless" Stimulus and Bailouts, etc.), but they were made believable at least to enough people who were motivated to vote and pull the "R" lever. It may not have much to do with statesmanship, but it was textbook politics.

A special mention goes to the Tea Party, who can reasonably claim to have put the lift back in the step of Republicans, generate anger and organize it. They can also be blamed for loosing the Senate as their primary wins in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada removed more mainstream candidates who would almost certainly have defeated their Democratic opponents. That would have made the Senate Dems 48(+2) Reps (50) and the chance for the Reps to pull Lieberman or one of the conservative Dem senators would have been pretty significant. Also a shout out to Lisa Murkowski for apparently winning the Alaska Senate seat as a write-in after she lost the Republican primary. By far the biggest slap in the face for Sarah Palin who despite some significant successes supporting Tea Party candidates during Republican primaries failed in the overwhelming majority of races on Nov 2nd against the Democratic candidates. The Tea Party giveth and the Tea Party taketh away.