Yesterday's midterm election results, from the top of the ballot to the bottom, and across the country, represented an unmistakable repudiation of the many policy failures of the Bush administration, in Iraq and domestically, and of the Bush-Rove politics of polarization. The results also confirmed a historic opportunity for Democrats to retake the abandoned political center, and it showed their renewed ability and determination to do so.
The congressional results speak for themselves. The limits on changes in the House imposed by a decade of GOP-driven gerrymandering and re-gerrymandering made yesterday's Democratic gains even more striking than they initially appear. Almost everywhere Democrats had a fighting chance, they won. Under the direction of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee exhibited great skill in expanding the battlefield, with a lot of help from committed activists, particularly in previously desolate territory. The Senate results were just as striking, given the red-state tilt of Senate seats and the big GOP advantage in contested races.
Outside the congressional races, Democrats did just as well at the state level, capturing a majority of governorships for the first time since 1994, and also winning control of eight new legislative chambers. These gains, a testament to the centrist problem-solving reputation of Democrats outside the cauldron of Beltway partisan warfare, will pay political dividends for many years to come. As in the congressional results, Democrats showed that they could expand the electoral battlefield deep into red-state territory, while entrenching their blue-state majority.
Democrats deserve praise for energizing the party base and exploiting the discouragement of the conservative Republican base. But it's clear that the scope of the Democratic victory depended on a decisive victory among independent and moderate voters who were tired of Bush-Rove, placate-the-base politics, and exasperated by the vast series of policy failures at the national and state levels that those politics have produced. According to national exit polls, Democrats won independent voters by a margin of 57-39, and moderates by an even stronger margin of 61-38. They also won suburbs 51-48, small towns 50-48, and won nearly half of the rural vote. Democrats also won the middle class, capturing a majority of votes from every income category up to $100,000, and only narrowly trailing in the higher income brackets.
Although it did not have an effect on the composition of the Senate, Joe Lieberman's re-election in Connecticut as an independent Democrat showed that voters were more interested in repudiating Republicans than in endorsing some sort of counter-polarization strategy for Democrats. The right has lost, for the moment, but the center is still where the action is.
Absent this reaction from the vital center of the electorate, all the excitement and energy and money and mobilization among Democratic partisans would not have mattered that much. Governing still matters most, and Americans across the political and ideological spectrum have shown they don't like the kind of governance that is based on special interest pandering, ideological extremism, and a stubborn refusal to face facts and talk honestly with the American people. This election was an "accountability moment" for the GOP, and a fresh opportunity for Democrats to show they can do much better.
There is plenty of reason for Democrats to celebrate, but the results also serve as a reminder that Democrats must not make the same mistakes that finally undid the Bush-Rove strategy for a Republican majority. We'll have more to say about that tomorrow, when we examine the question of "What's Next?" for Democrats.
