The Importance of Gubernatorial Elections

Recently, New Jersey and Virginia played host to the only two gubernatorial elections of 2009. Some pundits believe that these elections were a referendum of Barack Obama while others argued the results were simply following historical trends. The assumption that the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey were a referendum of Barack Obama was refuted through exit polls. 60 percent of New Jersey voters and 56 percent of Virginia voters said that Obama had no impact on their vote. The assumption that historical trends were the reason for the GOP victories does not encompass enough hard evidence. These elections were not a referendum on our radically liberal president, but the elections were a referendum of the new radical liberal policies.

There is much evidence to support the notion that the American people are fed up with the new radical left-wing policies. The economy is still the most important issue on the minds of the American people and a first look at the exit polls show that 85 percent of voters in Virginia and 89 percent of New Jersey voters were worried about the direction of our economy. Over 50 percent in each state were “very” worried about the economy and these voters went overwhelmingly for the Republican Candidates, Christie in New Jersey and McDonnell in Virginia. The second biggest piece of evidence that shows that Americans are fed up with Washington’s new radical liberal policies is that independent voters overwhelmingly supported Republicans. Although turnout was considerably lower than that of the 2008 elections where Obama and McCain split independents in Virginia, McDonnell had double the support from independents than Creigh Deeds, his Democratic counterpart. Christie also followed suit by winning the independent vote by thirty points over incumbent Jon Corzine, which he needed to do to win a traditionally blue state. Christie even managed to win “change” voters by a 41 point margin.

It should be understood that many Democrats justify their loss in New Jersey by claiming that Christie’s victory was not a symbol of any GOP resurgence, but that Jon Corzine, with approval ratings in the upper thirties, was very unpopular and any Republican would have been able to win. However, these Democrats are misinformed because they are only looking at Christie’s margin of victory, a seemingly mere 5 percentage points. Democrats forget to factor in the independent candidate, Chris Daggett, who got 6 percent of the vote. Most likely, if Daggett was not in the race, his voters would have chosen Christie. Daggett, a former Republican, more closely aligns his views with Christie, and his entrance into the race is credited with Christie’s decline in the polls before the election. If the race was only between Christie and Corzine, it is safe to assume that Christie would have won by more than 5 percentage points.

The 2009 gubernatorial elections were a symbol of the American people becoming disgusted with Washington’s extremely liberal policies. Independents and Americans who are very worried with the direction of the economy made it very clear that they are against the radical change that Washington is attempting to implement. These people, who were promised change by Obama, are not getting the kind of change that they imagined, and that alone explains why Americans in Virginia and New Jersey elected Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie to govern their states for the next 4 years.