My last post for this blog was an analysis of Obama on the campaign trail and the work that he was doing to ensure that Democrats across the country got elected. I assigned the President the title “Campaigner-in-Chief.” Indeed, because of Obama’s tour around the nation from coast to coast, this name was deserved due to his rock star status. And while several candidates across the nation told the President to stay away, fearful of the negative feelings of constituents, the general consensus is that Obama only campaigned in those areas selectively chosen where he would have the greatest positive impact.
So how did he do? While it is debatable whether or not the President deserves all the credit for races won, it is very obvious in many cases the plan did work. Let’s begin with Massachusetts, one of the first places the President visited leading up to the midterm elections. A rally was held at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center hosting 15,000 people, 5,000 more than expected. This made the headlines throughout the state. Deval Patrick, the Democratic candidate for governor, was the reason Obama came, and he benefitted a lot. Patrick not only surged ahead of his main opponent Patrick Baker, but he took a 7-point win on November 2. In addition, Massachusetts’ most hotly contested Congressional race in the 10th District was won by Democratic Representative Bill Keating. Massachusetts may be a blue state, but we may be able to thank Obama for keeping in that way in this anti-incumbent, anti-Democrat election season.
Staying on the East Coast, Obama had some other victories, especially in Connecticut. There, three big races caught the President’s attention. The first was the big senate race between Richard Blumenthal (D) and Linda McMahon (R). McMahon had spent $50 million of her own money in the race, which Blumenthal won pretty handily. Even more hotly contested was the race for representative in the 5th District and the race for Governor. Freshman Representative Jim Himes (D) was able to squeak out a win against his opponent, Dan Debicella. And, Dan Malloy (D) looks like he will be the next governor of the state, replacing the current Republican governor, having beaten Tom Foley by about one point. Again, it seems that Obama’s rock star status had an effect on people who gathered at Harbor Yard Arena in Bridgeport, so much so that Republicans were defeated in all of the big-ticket races.
Going out west, Obama could not be happier. The midterm elections in some sense suggest that the west was the Democratic stronghold in what has become a very good election cycle for Republicans. Obama traveled to both California and Nevada. California had two high profile races, one being the gubernatorial race between Jerry Brown (D) and Meg Whitman (R) the former CEO of EBAY, who spent a record $160 million on her campaign. Brown won that race quite comfortably. The other huge race was the Senate race in which Barbara Boxer (D) was trying to hold off Carly Fiorina (R) and the strong anti-incumbent forces that were making that race tight. In both cases, the President is said to have had a great positive effect, allowing these candidates to jump ahead in the polls providing at least some excitement in this dismal year for Democrats.
But of all the races that the nation was watching this election, the Senate Race in Nevada was the most captivating.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was fighting for his political life in a very close and intense race against Tea Party backed Sharron Angle. For a long time leading up to the election, Angle was leading in all the polls. In fact, Nate Silver of 538.com had called the race for Angle. Obama went down to Nevada to rally the people behind his increasingly unpopular endorsed candidate with the hope he would be able to pull of a electoral miracle. The night of November 2 rolled around and a miracle it was. While every other toss-up race in the nation was extremely close, Reid pulled off a 5-point win.
We must deduce from this news that Obama did reasonably well. But not everything he did yielded great results. A few races in particular served to be a thorn in the President’s side. First and foremost, Obama failed to win the coveted Senate seat in Illinois, which belonged to him when he was a US Senator. The President rallied in a familiar neighborhood in Chicago to win that seat, though Alexi Giannoulias was unable to pull it off. Nearby, a hotly contested gubernatorial race ended with the incumbent Ted Strickland losing in Ohio, which is predictably going to be a battleground state for the Presidency in 2012. Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate seat also was a loss in the President’s column as Joe Sestak went down in a close defeat. In Virginia, Obama campaigned for Tom Perriello, who was down in the polls to his Republican challenger. He too lost, further weakening the prowess of Obama to get Democrats elected across the nation.
So what can we conclude from this? Perhaps not very much. Obama won some and lost others. It was a tough year for him, and for Democrats in general. Yet even so, he was able to face this great adversity and pull off some big wins. Overall, few would argue that Obama had no positive effect in the areas he visited. Clearly, he was an asset, which the local candidates were using in their favor. The question was how much was Obama going to help them? In hindsight, the answer for some was a lot. For others, not enough.