The chattering class too often obsesses on the 'big' races, ignoring those at the local level where emerging trends, though harder to spot, are often more telling.
Such was the case this month as Washington pundits, examining Governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s surprisingly close re-election in New York City, divined that voters in 2009 were signaling an “anti-incumbent” mood. The same conclusion is to be drawn, we are told, from the low favorability ratings of Governors from California to New York, and in the abysmal approvals given Congress.
Of the 19 races my firm handled in the 2009 cycle, 16 were in New York's Hudson Valley, those bucolic and decidedly upscale bedroom counties just north of New York City in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess and Orange counties. All 16 won.
In none of our polling did an “anti-incumbent” pattern present itself, nor was it part of our campaign messages.
What did emerge was a decidedly anti-spending, anti-tax and anti-government mood.
Four of our clients happened to be incumbents, who proudly went before voters telling what they had done to economize: they’d already cut government spending and, they assured voters, they’re prepared to do so again. One of our clients had managed to avoid either tax hikes or reductions in services by the simple step of reducing the number of paid lunch hours afforded public workers. The public employee union howled. The taxpayers applauded.
Those incumbents – just like two of our candidates running for open seats – earned the trust of voters campaigning on plans to reduce government spending and keep taxes down. Similarly, three of our challenger candidates succeeded in Primary campaigns by defeating pro-spending, pro-tax incumbents or incumbents who turned a tin ear to the public mood.
While I’d like to take credit for precision targeting and campaign messaging, the truth is that we had a national anti-tax, anti-spending tailwind at our backs. Those who ignore it, be they incumbents, challengers or open-seat candidates, do so at their peril.
There is, in addition, a partisan taint to all this, because while voters may not think highly of either party, they still see Republicans as more likely to protect tax dollars.
For perspective, the historically blood-red Republican Hudson Valley is now purple terrain. As Democrats moved north out of New York City, Republicans have lost their historic enrollment edge in all except a single County. This was Obama country in 2008, and Hillary Clinton swept the region in her 2006 Senate race. In 2006, the new demographic swept a six-term moderate Republican Congresswoman from office. The change has been sudden: the region went to George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004.
On election night 2009, the Hudson Valley took a sharp turn right. Westchester County, where democrats outnumber Republicans two to one, elected a 42 year old Republican its new County Executive with 58% of the vote. Going into election night, Democrats controlled the 25 member Dutchess County Legislature. They saw their number reduced to six seats. In 2008, the City of Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County afforded President Obama 76% of the vote. In 2009, voters turned what was a 7-1 democratic City Council into one that is now 5-3 Republican. Republicans in Orange County, who held ten of 21 seats in the county legislature saw their numbers swell to 14. The incumbent Orange County Executive, a Republican, was reelected with 62% of the vote, in a county that Obama easily carried a year ago and despite a three point democratic registration edge.
The so-called “Tea Parties” of August were a symptom, not a cause. The participants represent only the most vocal of a rising tide of Americans whose lives and fortunes were turned upside-down by the financial collapse of October, 2008. They’ve lost jobs, homes and dreams, or know friends and relatives who have.
They’ve made sacrifices and adjustments in their own lives. They’ve learned how to get along with less.
And they expect no less of their government.
