Republicans Are Poised for Gains in Key Elections

WASHINGTON — Republicans appear positioned for strong results in three hard-fought elections Tuesday. But isolated, off-year contests aren’t always reliable indicators of what will happen in the wider federal and state races held in even-numbered years.

Democrats and Republicans are jostling to glean messages from voters in a race for a U.S. House seat in far northern New York, as well as from contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. Republicans, increasingly optimistic, say the contests foreshadow trouble for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party’s ambitious agenda heading toward the 2010 congressional elections.

“We will be looking very closely at the results in these three races and reminding Democrats of the message they send about the agenda that they are forcing on American taxpayers,” said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which coordinates GOP House races.

A Republican sweep in Tuesday’s key contests would at minimum show that Democrats face much tougher political terrain than they did a year ago. GOP victories would also help the party’s fundraising and candidate recruitment for 2010, providing backing for arguments that Republicans have the momentum, and that voters are turning against the Obama agenda.

But it can be difficult to draw broader conclusions from off-year contests, which often turn on local issues.

Going back to 1989, one party swept the off-year gubernatorial elections five times. Three of those times, that party also won the following year’s congressional elections; twice it did not.

In 1993, Republicans Christie Todd Whitman in New Jersey and George Allen in Virginia captured their states’ governor’s mansions. The following year brought the dramatic Republican takeover of Congress.

In 2001 gubernatorial races, Democrats Jim McGreevey in New Jersey and Mark Warner in Virginia swept to victory. The next year, Republicans gained seats in the House and Senate.

In June 2006, Republicans won a special House race in California, and Republicans crowed that the Democrats’ much-ballyhooed momentum was a fantasy. But in the fall elections that year, Democrats captured 31 seats and retook the House for the first time in 12 years.

“I don’t think they say anything,” Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, said of off-year elections. “The sample is too small and the issues are local.”

Each of Tuesday’s three high-profile races has unique factors that could confound efforts to discern national trends. In New Jersey, independent Chris Daggett is attracting significant support — which could tip the outcome toward incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in his close race with Republican challenger Chris Christie.

[Key Contests chart]

In Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Republican Bob McDonnell has led by double digits for weeks and is likely to end a recent Democratic surge in a longtime Republican state. Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has been weighed down as much by his troubles addressing questions about state tax and transportation policy as by his ties to Mr. Obama’s policies.

In New York, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman has surged into the lead in the 23rd Congressional District, according to two polls, following the abrupt withdrawal Saturday of Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava. A Siena Research Institute Poll showed Mr. Hoffman, who was embraced by the Republican Party following Ms. Scozzafava’s withdrawal, leading 41% to 36%. A survey by Public Policy Polling showed a bigger lead, 54% to 38%.

Mr. Hoffman’s success in defining himself as more conservative than Ms. Scozzafava, the choice of the local Republican establishment, has handed a victory to such groups as the Club for Growth that contributed large sums of money and helped fire conservative activists. But whether those groups can engineer similar victories elsewhere isn’t certain.

Some conservative voters in the district said they hoped the election would send the GOP a message that its candidates need to hew to conservative ideals. “The whole Republican party should take notice,” said Jim Peters, 62, who owns a diner in Mayfield, N.Y.

Others disagreed. Janice Norris, a 74-year-old supporter of Democrat Bill Owens in Watertown, N.Y., said Mr. Hoffman’s views were too far to the right for the district.

“This area is not ultra-conservative and it’s not ultra-liberal,” Ms. Norris said. “There would have been a choice between Dede and Owens, but there is no choice between Owens and Hoffman.”

Democrats weren’t giving up Monday in either New York or New Jersey, where the races remain extremely fluid.

Vice President Joe Biden traveled Monday to Watertown to exhort voters to support Mr. Owens in the House race there.

“We’re not asking you to switch your party,” Mr. Biden said in a pitch aimed at supporters of Ms. Scozzafava. “We’re just saying, join us in teaching a lesson to absolutists who come and tell us that no dissent is permitted within their own party.”
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