Dividing And Conquering In State Races
This may be an off-year election, but two governor’s races and one congressional district are making national news. From my perspective, there will be three themes coming out of Tuesday’s governor races in New Jersey and Virginia, and the election to fill a vacant House seat in northern New York state.
First, most elections are seen as a referendum on the president, and that’s especially true for Barack Obama, who in his first year in office is taking up major issues. Second, two of the races, for New Jersey governor and New York’s 23rd Congressional District seat, include third-party candidates, and how well they do will have significance. Third, the congressional election is splitting the national Republican Party, with some big names in the GOP backing the third-party candidate.
Read all of John Zogby’s thoughts on next week’s elections at Forbes.com.
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1. If for some reason, our current governor was to leave office, a gubernatorial race in our state would definitely NOT be so much about Obama as it would be about some hot local and regional issues. I am still not totally buying this premise.
2. However, I am a moderate Republican. IF this third party stuff gathers enough steam to further pull the Republican party to the right, it’s hasta la vista, baby. The tent will not longer be big enough for me. I don’t know how many of my brand of Republicans are out there, but then John, neither do you, which is why you are closely watching this trend. I will be researching what it might be like to be a conservative Democrat.