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Obama Voters Sit Election Out; Dems Lose N.J.
By The Associated Press
Atlanta mayoral candidate and state Senator Kasim Reed addresses his supporters after forcing a run-off Tuesday night.
Independents who supported Obama broke heavily for Republicans Tuesday, helping the GOP win marquee governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey. And the coalition of younger, minority voters who powered Obama's victory last year was replaced by an electorate that was noticeably whiter, especially in Virginia, where Democrat Creigh Deeds lost in a landslide.
Yet Democrats weren't the only ones in danger, as voters also vented their frustration at incumbents and party insiders.
In upstate New York, Democrat Bill Owens won a House seat held for decades by Republicans in a special election dominated by a fierce intraparty GOP split.
There, conservatives and national Republican figures led by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin helped force out assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate chosen by GOP county chairmen, in favor of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. The conservatives were incensed by Scozzafava's support for abortion rights and gay marriage.
Party strategists worry the Obama voters who helped elect Democrats up and down the ballot last year may sit out the midterms because the president isn't on the ballot, or because they're frustrated he hasn’t yet brought the fundamental change to Washington that he promised.
Democrats must defend as many as 60 marginal House seats next year, many in districts the president lost or carried only narrowly in 2008, as opposed to about 40 for Republicans.
Tuesday's results also pointed to a somewhat reinvigorated Republican Party after it had been left for dead a year ago. That's largely thanks to independents, the fastest growing voter bloc, and the most notoriously fickle.
In Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell won a whopping 66 percent of the independent vote, helping him bury Deeds, who got just 33 percent. Obama narrowly carried independents in the state last year, helping him become the first Democrat to win the state in a presidential contest since 1964.
In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie won a much tighter race against incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, largely on the strength of independents. Christie won 60 percent of the independent vote after Obama won a majority of independents last year.
In Atlanta's mayoral race, City Councilwoman Mary Norwood, vying to become the city's first white mayor in a generation, received 45 percent of the vote, compared to Sen. Kasim Reed at 38 percent. City Council president Lisa Borders was a distant third with 14 percent and conceded early.
Norwood did not get 50 percent of the vote plus one to avoid a runoff. Election officials estimated voter turnout could be at its lowest in recent memory, with far fewer ballots cast than the 35 percent of registered voters who participated in recent mayoral races.
Norwood, Reed and Borders were the front-runners in the crowded field for much of the campaign and battled for weeks over public safety and open government, as the issue of race loomed over the contest. Political observers say the race will continue to polarize voters along racial lines in the weeks before an anticipated Dec. 1 runoff.
Reed, whose momentum has swelled in recent weeks, told cheering supporters he was "ready to go for this city."
"I will fight for you," Reed told the crowd. "I will stand up for you and we will make Atlanta the city on a hill again."
Atlanta has had a long line of black mayors since 1973. Current Mayor Shirley Franklin, the city's first female in the office, was barred from seeking a third term.
Borders thanked supporters at her Election Night headquarters downtown.
"I am conceding the race," Borders said about three hours after the polls close. "I'm not going to talk about endorsements tonight."
In Detrit, professional basketball Hall of Famer Dave Bing was re-elected Detroit mayor.
The 65-year-old Democrat defeated accountant Tom Barrow in Tuesday's nonpartisan general election.
Bing's NBA career lasted 12 seasons, nine with the Detroit Pistons.
As mayor, he has laid off workers and demanded a 10 percent wage cut to help address the city's ongoing budget deficit.
It was the fourth time Detroit voters cast ballots this year for mayor.
Bing received the most votes in a February primary and defeated incumbent Ken Cockrel Jr. in a May runoff to complete Kwame Kilpatrick's second term. Kilpatrick resigned as part of pleas in two criminal cases.
Bing also received the most votes in the August primary.
Billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg heads toward a third term bruised by a surprisingly close re-election battle that exposed lingering anger over his reversal on term limits and his prodigious campaign spending.
In the days leading up to the election, Bloomberg was expected to secure an easy victory, perhaps by double digits. But he won by just five percentage points — an advantage of less than 51,000 votes.
The mayor called it a "hard-fought victory in a very difficult year," and promised that New Yorkers "ain't seen nothing yet" from him.
"I'm committed to working twice as hard in the next four years as I did in the past eight," Bloomberg said.
Facing an underdog Democratic opponent who had little money and no name recognition, Bloomberg still waged the most expensive self-financed political campaign in U.S. history.
But city Comptroller William Thompson Jr. hammered the mayor relentlessly on term limits, saying Bloomberg went back on his word when he orchestrated a change to a term-limits law that voters had upheld by referendum twice in the 1990s.
Thompson also blasted Bloomberg as an out-of-touch elitist who abandoned the middle class. But Thompson gave voters few other reasons to support him.
Other notable races and measures in Tuesday's election:
— Boston Mayor Thomas Menino won an unprecedented fifth consecutive four-year term. He has been in office for 16 1/2 years, longer than any mayor in the city's history.
— In Houston, city controller Annise Parker and former city attorney Gene Locke are headed to a runoff to decide who will succeed three-term Mayor Bill White in America's fourth-biggest city. Parker would be the city's first openly gay mayor.
— Pittsburgh's 29-year-old mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, won his first full term in office. One of his opponents was Franco Dok Harris, whose father is the Hall of Fame running back.
— The ski town of Breckenridge, Colo., voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana possession for adults. The measure is largely symbolic, because pot possession remains a state crime for people without medical clearance.
— Maine voters, given the chance to make the state the first to approve gay marriage at the ballot box, voted down a same-sex marriage law approved by legislators in May.
— Maine voters approved a referendum that stretches the state's medical marijuana law by expanding the conditions under which people can be prescribed marijuana and by allowing for retail dispensaries from which the drug can be distributed to patients.
— Ohio approved casinos in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo, ending two decades' worth of voter opposition to bring nonlottery gambling to Ohio.
— In Texas, voters passed a constitutional amendment aimed at preventing the government from taking private property purely for economic development.
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