The Every Sperm is Sacred Act and the Fuck the Public Unions Act were both rejected at the polls last night in Mississippi and Ohio. Ohio is at 61-39, and even more surprising, Mississippi wasn’t close at all, currently holding at 59-41.
The Maine citizen veto of the voter suppression law Kay wrote about yesterday sailed through, 59-40 at the moment. In other races mentioned by ABL yesterday, control of the Virginia State Senate is down to one race with an 86 vote margin, and the Democrat won the Kentucky Governorship. That last link also includes links to AP results in every state.
In Western New York, Chris Collins, the head of the Erie County (Buffalo) Republican machine, who was considered responsible for losing the NY-26 special election this Spring, got his ass handed to him by Democrat Mark Poloncarz, which was satisfying, since Collins is a major asshole.
Omnes Omnibus
The Senate President in AZ, Pearce, got recalled.
SiubhanDuinne
Reality Check must be enjoying all this morning-after VICTORY!
Triassic Sands
That is probably a more accurate way to describe this outcome (and many others, sad to say).
Ben Cisco
Charlotte mayor Anthony Foxx was re-elected with 67 percent of the vote. Also:
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EconWatcher
As a Virginian, I have to say: How on earth did Spotsylvania have a Democratic state senator in the first place? Isn’t that, you know, Deliverance territory?
Omnes Omnibus
@Triassic Sands: It’s Kentucky; do you think that a Deval Patrick or Jennifer Granholm was really in the cards?
Mark S.
Wow, more evidence that we are a center right nation!
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Joe has that dickehead McDonald on just going on and on about what a big night it was for his shithead party.
13th Generation
@Ben Cisco:
Saw those results this morning. Overwhelming Democratic turnout. School board results could have been better, though.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@EconWatcher: That’s Georgia.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
I’m always thankful that you watch MJ so I don’t have to.
Seriously, a “big night” for the GOP? I do not think that term means what he thinks it does.
Ben Cisco
This in from Raleigh:
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Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe we found Reality Check’s real world identity.
Ben Cisco
@13th Generation: Yes, overall turnout was lower than I thought it would be. Still, I’m happy with the results.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@SiubhanDuinne: Fucker whined about Obama over and over and then said “we need to tone down the rhetoric.”
c u n d gulag
Yay! Good for OH!!!
And Maine!!!
And Mississippi – who rejected “personhood”!!!
However, two of the Democratic candidates I supported and made calls for here in Upstate NY lost to their Republican counterparts.
Republicans continue pretty well here in the Mid-Hudson Valley. But then, they usually do. All politics is local, and our politics suck.
Onwards to 2012!!!
AxelFoley
@SiubhanDuinne:
OWN’D
Elizabelle
@EconWatcher:
Plz keep us posted on what happens in Virginia. 86 votes is mighty slim.
Pretty fair piece by Karen Tumulty (formerly of TIME) in WaPost today: Virginia will be tough for Obama in 2012, especially since he was the only Democrat to carry the state in 44 years. (Think about that! Actually, I was surprised Goldwater lost it in 1964 …)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/virginia-elections-may-be-a-warning-sign-for-obama/2011/11/08/gIQANhxg3M_story.html
Headline, of course, is “Virginia elections may be a warning sign for Obama” but story’s more nuanced.
Virginia’s purple, and Northern Virginia (the people’s republic of …) is relatively transient.
Hard road for Obama, sure, but doable IF a strong GOTV.
Plus a Senate race between Tim Kaine and George “Macaca” Allen.
13th Generation
@Ben Cisco:
Yep. Would love to see 2:1 Democratic turnout in the state and national elections!
Scott
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m sure Reality Check will be debuting a new nom de bullshit later today so he can claim to have never made any of his previous claims…
Nemesis
With few exceptions, the gop got their asses handed to them last night.
The notion that goopers can get elected to office running on jobs, jobs, jobs, and then, with no political capital or mandate, downshift into union-busting and culture wars, has been dealt a debilitating body blow.
No, the goopers wont stop, reflect and adjust their ideology to be more in step with ordinary Americans.
When the gop receives yet another national smackdown one year from now, the gop will hibernate, reconstitute and return with even more dangerous and onerous beliefs. They will tack further rightward as violence becomes an even more reasonable solution to their election woes.
Elizabelle
Shame that those who tend to vote Democratic don’t turn out in off-year elections.
Really, it’s shameful.
Glen Tomkins
Ideology
The majority, everywhere in the country, is with us on actual public policy questions. But our side acquiesces in a system that, as much as possible, runs elections as far away as possible from actual public policy questions. We let the other side have a field day and run riot defining elections as being about every phony issue out there, everything but actual issues. It takes the other side to go so overboard in a craziness we do nothing to restran or hem in, that they reach the point of threatening a real public policy good the majority values, such as birth control or IVF, so transparently that the majority has no trouble seeing that there are actual issues involved, and therefore votes overwhelmingly for our side.
Gee, think it might be a good idea to short-circuit that process and just fight all elections on ideological grounds?
Sunhaws
And the democratic candidate in Iowa won the special state senate election here, which keeps the democrats in the majority and helps mightily to protect the right for all to marry. It was a good night.
jon
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bad news: Kyl’s Senate seat is available in 2012. Guess who has plenty of time to run now?
ET
A friend of mine sent me something from Gawker that made me laugh in the “Republicans just make me tired” sort of way.
There has it seems, been a tax on Christmas trees that has been in the works since 2008 (news to me) and Drudge is peddling the “Obama hates Christians” because he is taxing Christmas trees. According to Gawker it was pushed by the National Christmas Tree Association.
bottyguy
I haven’t watched the TV news yet, can someone let me know how this is good news for Republicans?
The other Marc
@Elizabelle:
Beat me to it. With victories for Democrats, unions, and women in Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, NY, NC, and apparently Arizona, the Washington Post headline is “Virginia elections may be a warning sign for Obama.”
Then again, this is the paper whose editorial page is currently running a defense of Joe Paterno.
gibsojj
Yo I was a No on 26 organizer for the mississippi democratic party. We had a huge last minute volunteer surge that really helped get the word out. Thanks to all that participated.
Maxwel
Speaking of major assholes, where is Reality check?
harlana
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!
harlana
@bottyguy:
I’ll try to find ya’ some and get back to ya’
(–wink–)
agrippa
Good news.
I hope that it is sign of more good news.
agrippa
@Maxwel:
Reality check is one of the village idiots that Balloon Juice hired to play the role of ‘holy fool’.
SiubhanDuinne
@Scott:
Oh, he doesn’t need to go to all that trouble, he’ll make that claim anyhow. Shit, he was doing it last night as issue after issue and candidate after candidate toppled like bowling pins.
harlana
@The other Marc:
aahh, now that’s the liberal media we know and love
gnomedad
For heaven’s sake, stop invoking He Who Must Not Be Fed!
The Other Bob
I would really like to see some polling cross tabs on the Mississippi personhood vote.
gene108
@Ben Cisco:
I hope the two ass-wipes from NJ, who were trying to screw up Wake County Public Schools are out.
City school districts is a NJ thing. They don’t need to bring that shit to Wake County Schools.
Mark S.
@ET:
Ha, I was skimming the comments to some Hot Air post (don’t ask) and came across this:
Your tears are sweet, infidel!
MomSense
DIRIGO!!!
It was a great night!! If you follow Maine politics, the look on Charlie Webster’s face when his voter disenfranchisement law was repealed was wicked, wicked, good!
beltane
Since Reality Check is still in the throes of deep despair and cannot yet bring himself to comment here, I will help him out by reminding you all of the fact that Ohio voters voted against the Mitt Romney inspired health insurance individual mandate which is, of course, very good news for Mitt Romney.
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus: I would settle for another John Sherman Cooper….
beltane
@The Other Bob: I suspect there were a lot of conservative Christian women in Mississippi who, safely out of the gaze of their husbands and pastors, chose to vote their own and their daughters self-interest.
Ira-NY
In Iowa Dems won special election and held onto the Senate.
Davis X. Machina
@beltane: This is why we need all-postal elections, so that Pastor Bob and the Worship Team can help you all prayerfully complete your ballots in the church basement right after Wednesday evening Bible study.
DecidedFenceSitter
@EconWatcher: Fredericksburg folks to who commute to DC.
Snowball
@Elizabelle:
Yup. Elections do have consequences as we saw in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan etc…But when you don’t vote, you really don’t have much right to complain.
RSA
Good news all around! (For John McCain.)
Chyron HR
@Mark S.:
Those atheist soshulists love them some Ramadan.
P.S. VICTORY
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
This is excellent news for McRomney!
@Maxwel: Cryin’ inta his laaarhge pilla!
deep cap
I knew I would get a nice present for Eid this year!
nepat
Where are all the “What do yesterday’s elections mean for Republicans in ’12” articles in the MSM? Looking. Not finding.
amk
For those who are whining last night was not good enough, a little perspective people.
ericblair
@DecidedFenceSitter:
Yeah, Spotsylvania’s basically the south extent of the exurbs of DC, with all the usual political ramifications. North of it are luxury cars sitting in traffic, and south of it are Waffle Houses and pickup trucks.
Jay C
@beltane:
Naahh, I doubt whether our current troll-du-jour is much in the throes of anything other than obsessive scouring of the Internet for election results — so that he can come back later and post some snark-laden comment about how Issue 666 sailed to a 51-49 victory in Arkansas, or that the Republicans swept the school-board elections in East Clodhockey, PA, so this is ABSOLUTE PROOF that last night was a BOLD-FACE VICTORY for the GOP, that Obama is toast, and all we libtards will be sneering out the other side of our fraudulent ballots next November….
Either that, or he’s busy working as a writer for the Washington Post…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@gene108: The entire state of Texas is run on a city school district model. We like to call ours “Indipendent School Districts.” It’s pretty much designed so that the rich districts don’t have to pay for the poor districts.
jibeaux
@gene108:
Only one, Margiotta, was from NJ, but yes, he’s out. Out of the most Republican-friendly district Wake county has. I don’t think his style helped him any. Tedesco is from, I believe, Pennsylvania. But I’m sorry, single men with no kids being on the school board is just creepy, and he’s not just a publicity-mad teabagger, he’s just creepy. I really look forward to his irrelevance.
cintibud
@bottyguy: GMA – the elections were about the 8th story or so and had about 15 seconds. Had to hear about the exclusive interview with the Conrad Murry Trial Jury and hear what Nancy Grace had to say about it. May have been ahead of the DWTS rehash but more Nancy Grace face time in just that one spot than Ohio. Nancy was voted off! More good news for John McCain!
Linda Featheringill
@beltane:
A secret ballot is a wonderful thing!
My mother routinely voted in ways different from the rest of the family. I didn’t know this until just a little bit before she died.
jibeaux
@jibeaux:
Oh, and Democrats are pretty much going to hold these seats for at least 4 years, because the only people up in 2013 are the Republicans. This literally went as well as you could have asked for, with the exception of we had to have a runoff election over 51 votes short.
JasonF
@ET: The so-called tax on Christmas trees is part of the USDA checkoff program, in which producers of a particular agricultural product pay a fee to a USDA regulated board, which then uses the funds for promotion and research. This is how the dairy industry pays for those “Got Milk?” ads and how the beef industry pays for those “Beef: It’s what’s for dinner” ads, and is presumably how the Christmas tree industry will pay for their “Artificial trees make the baby Jesus cry” ad campaign.
And as you point out, it’s been in the works since the Bush administration.
Linda Featheringill
Interesting numbers pulled out of my unreliable memory because I don’t have time to look them up:
Issue 2 in Ohio would have directly affected some 366,000 people and yet over 2 million voted against it.
Glenda
I’ve been watching Fox News since 8:00 CST (for 10-15 minutes) and the only news that they are truly covering is the Virginia state races. They’ve talked some about the Ohio vote that reversed Kasich, but the story centered on how humble the Kasich reply has been and how he cares so much about Ohio jobs.
Their lead-off story at the top of the hour was to cover the all the workplace problems that the women who are accusing Herman Cain have had over the years, because you know that it isn’t his problem at all, but all those greedy women.
The Other Bob
@beltane:
Bingo!
chopper
this morning i’m enjoying a nice hot cup of VICTORY.
rikryah
good news all around
Chris
@Nemesis:
They really did. I’m mainly surprised that the margin was so wide for a pro-choice position in freaking MISSISSIPPI. Damn.
And this happened only one measly year after their big day in 2010. Offhand, I’d say the public isn’t nearly as with them as they think.
So, more dangerous and onerous than the Tea Party Movement. Christ, that’s going to be a sight to behold.
quannlace
The few minutes that I saw, they were commenting on Kasich and the overturning of the bill. Spent almost the whole segment complimenting themselves on how they predicted all this months ago! Cause no matter what happens in the news, it’s really all about Joe.
Chris
@Glenda:
Heh. Would you be surprised to learn there was absolutely nothing about it on PJMedia? Closest thing’s an article about how some PJM guy got elected to some board of commissioners somewhere in Pennsylvania. Otherwise, not even a shadow of an acknowledgement that a shit ton of ballots just got cast.
Eh. Screw Kasich, the conservative media and the rats they rode in on. We won. Best day for Democrats to come around in a while, methinks.
Frankensteinbeck
Egads! It’s as if conservatives did not have a public mandate in 2010, but instead won a standard backlash midterm election!
Southern Beale
Also, Grover Norquist continues to get the middle finger from Republicans who have decided they’ve had enough of his bullshit.
Says one:
Cracks are forming. Still small, but I’m seeing glimmer of hope.
ET
I forgot but my mother lives in MS and I had to tell her about the amendment. She wasn’t sure it was just MS or the US and what it actually could mean. Now I have have always been more aware politically than she because she doesn’t have as much an interest in it as I do but still, not sure if I should know more than she. Don’t know how she voted and won’t ask because she and I sit on opposite sides of the fence on that but I think there was among some no sense of the unintended consequence of it. She did know that some religious leaders were less than supportive and i don’t know if that swayed her opinion in any way.
gene108
@beltane:
I wonder if the law passed, if I could call child protective services on a pregnant woman eating at McDonald’s, or eating blue cheese salad dressing or a host of other things that aren’t good for fetuses?
I think that reality must’ve dawned on the women folk.
Would be interesting to see the male/female split on who voted this down.
Judas Escargot
One good thing about the MS outcome: The GOP is now much less likely to try a national rollout of that idea, even if they manage to get the trifecta a year from now. (Unless they decide that they really want to be destroyed in 2014).
gene108
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Had to deal with the McKinney Independent District outside of Dallas for work. We sold them a software application about 10-11 years ago. They were really a pain in the ass to deal with. They wanted the work done for free.
@jibeaux:
From what I read they were both from NJ.
One of the biggest selling points of Wake County is you can go anywhere – Zebulon, Knightdale, Cary (when it was the low cost alternative to North Raleigh), Garner, inside the Beltway in Raleigh, etc. – and not worry about your kids school, because all the schools were pretty good.
Sure there’d be differences between Fuqua-Varina and Raleigh schools, but the differences aren’t as glaring as what those ass-hats from NJ wanted to make them.
Mary Jane
@gibsojj: Thank you. Every boot on the ground.
burnspbesq
Dems retain control of both houses of the NJ Legislature.
Rome Again
@jon:
Sarah Palin (she moved to Scottsdale, you know!)
handsmile
MomSense and Davis X. Machina:
Congratulations on democracy’s victory last night in the great state of Maine!
A 60%/40% repudiation of the Tea Party governor’s efforts to restrict citizens’ voting rights and traditions is an inspiring accomplishment.
This morning, the message on that sign I see after crossing the Piscataqua Bridge, “Maine, The Way Live Should Be,” rings out sweetly.
Dirigo!
Joel
@gibsojj: Awesome work. Well done!
deadrody
Also “walloped” ?
Obamacare mandate in Ohio
Mississippi House Democrats (first time since the Civil War)
Virgina Senate Democrats (odd that no mention of changing seats here)
MomSense
@handsmile
Yes the sign will read and truly mean “Maine, The Way Life Should Be” especially since someone stole the “Maine, Open For Business” sign that LePage installed!
They even listed it for sale on Craig’s list!