It will be interesting to see what the turnout is since there is no Obama on the ticket and the only people who are really motivated to vote in Virgina are the Republicans since they suffered a rare defeat there last time.

Here in Iowa the turnout was extremely low. Many counties are reporting around 4% turnout today with only a few high precincts around 20% but most are very very low--of course there is no governor or legislators on the ticket (only local city offices) which makes it not very interesting for most.

That is a false statement...the part I emboldened...

Exit polling indicated that voters didn't see election day as a referendum on the President.

Deeds lost first for being a dull campaigner early on and then campaigning as a pseudo-Republican later on: why should Democrats have turned out for him?

Corzine was already unpopular in NJ, and no amount of coat-tailing late on the President helped.

What was supposed to be the acid test for the purists purging the GOP: with over 85% percent of the vote counted, the Democrat, Owens, is winning NY-23, an area not presented by anyone but Republicans in decades.  Even if he ultimately loses to Hoffman, so much for the Palin, Thompson, Club for Growth, Pawlenty, etc. effect. If a purged/purist GOP is your idea of a great idea for 2010 and 2012, this should give you pause.  Gingrich was right before he was swept up in the euphoria over Hoffman: the GOP cannot grow by making their tent smaller.

In Maine, overturning gay marriage may be winning narrowing, but TABOR is losing big.

Bottom line is: be careful that you're not reading into the results what you want to see.

Perhaps so, but my so-called spin is fact-based: (1) Deeds did try to run away from Obama: he didn't draw Republicans, and Democratic voters stayed away. Overall turnout was lower than from last year, and Republicans did a better job of turnout with a better campaigner.

(2) Corzine was already unpopular in NJ and was not polling well throughout the election cycle. The voters confirmed the pre-election surveying.

(3) NY Republicans do not share the recent ideological rigidity of the far rightists who insist they are the base of that party. Hoffman was an outsider, didn't live in the district, and was revealed in debates and interviews as someone unfamiliar with specific issues of concern to NY-23 voters.  Owens lives in the district and would be a Blue Dog Democrat whose fiscal conservatism and specific knowledge of NY-23 issues made him more attractive.  If the NY GOP want to win that seat back, they'll have to run someone who isn't like Hoffman or more like John McHugh before he became Secretary of the Army. Dick Armey and Sarah Palin aren't going to be able to offer anyone from their stable of acolytes.

Not really, gubernatorial elections are invariably decided on local issues. Now, NY-23, that's a repudiation of Armeyism, Palinism, etc.  The purists threw their weight behind an outsider who was pretty much clueless on district issues, spouted Beckisms as if he were a mannequin, and lost a district parts of which hadn't elected a Democrat since 1850 when the alternative was voting for the Whig candidate.

Now that's a repudiation.

I'll try again. YES Obamas policies ARE involved in this election. A policy, for example, would be "higher taxes"...that they are levied locally doesnt mean its incongruent with that same issue nationally.

Yep the purist lost, we cannot know how that would have gone had the RNC nominated the right guy to begin with can we? Nope.

Frankly, Id rather have the democrat win than a faux republican. At least we know where we stand. Poseurs are ruining our side.

The success that the GOP will have in 2010, will be. Because of bad leadership in the Democrat Party, ie, the OPR Trio, (Obama, Pelosi and Reid). The three layered cake of hope for the GOP.