SALON

Wednesday, Nov 9, 2005 1:47 PM UTC

2005 elections: A bad day for the GOP

Democrats win races in Virginia and New Jersey, and Arnold Schwarzenegger flames out in California.

By

Topics: George W. Bush, War Room, Jon Corzine, Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Well, he asked for it.

By landing Air Force One in Richmond, Va., for an election eve rally with Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore, George W. Bush guaranteed that the results of the Virginia governor’s race would be viewed as a referendum on his presidency. Here it is: In what was supposed to be a close race, Kilgore lost to Democrat Tim Kaine by a margin of 52 to 46 percent. “Several GOP supporters conceded that the party’s inability to recapture the executive mansion reflected dissatisfaction with President Bush,” says the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Kilgore’s defeat may have been the most direct reflection on Bush, but the news from Tuesday’s off-off-year elections was pretty much bad all over for the president’s party. In the New Jersey governor’s race, Sen. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, cruised to a 10-point victory over Republican Doug Forrester. And in California, voters appeared to be delivering truckloads of humiliation to a governor who was once so popular that there was talk of amending the Constitution so that he could run for president. Arnold Schwarzenegger threw every inch of himself into four initiatives he said were needed to reform the state. Voters rejected every last one of them plus four more that found their way into the $50 million special election the governor called. In its lead news story this morning, the Los Angeles Times calls the vote a “sharp repudiation” of Schwarzenegger that “shattered his image as an agent of the popular will.”

The California vote was about Schwarzenegger, not Bush, but the same can’t be said of the mayor’s race in St. Paul, Minn. Former City Council member Chris Coleman ousted Mayor Randy Kelly by an embarrassing 38-point margin, and even Kelly said that the reason for his loss was his support for the president.

There were a few bright spots for Republicans and the religious right. As expected, Michael Bloomberg won an easy victory in the New York mayor’s race. And while Maine voters rejected an effort to rescind that state’s new gay-rights law, voters in Texas overwhelmingly approved an initiative outlawing same-sex marriage there. But the overall message was clear, at least for those not paid to spin by the GOP: The president is a hindrance, not a help, for Republican candidates right now. That may or may not be a predictor of things to come, but the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato suggests that it will be unless Bush can turn around his presidency soon. “I think the basic lesson is that Bush is at a point where he is going to pull down all Republicans a few points in 2006,” Sabato tells the Los Angeles Times. “He has got to restore a good 10 points on his popularity if Republicans are even going to hold their own in ’06.”

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog. More Tim Grieve.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 6 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Judge tells lesbian couple to separate or lose kids: "unmarried sexual relationships -- including straight ones – can be grounds for losing child custody"
89 points90 points | 16 comments
vote
Anonymous rallies behind Kaitlyn Hunt
22 points23 points | 31 comments
vote
Developers evict historic women’s shelter to build luxury hotel - The 104-yr-old Anna Louise Inn has ended its 2-year legal battle with a Fortune 500 company & will now move. Many view the victory of the insurance company over a community touchstone as a major blow to the city.
21 points22 points | 2 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
13 points14 points | comment
vote
I don’t hate millennials anymore! <--- not my words, but good read on Gen X. IMO
10 points11 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations