The winner’s aura around Barack Obama dissipated a bit this week when his party lost the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. It is tempting to see these elections, which always come in tandem a year after the presidential one, as a “referendum” on a new administration’s policies. They were in 1993, when Democratic losses showed the limits of Bill Clinton’s popularity and pointed to landslide Republican victories the following year. It is hard to assess whether voters were sending Mr Obama “a message” on healthcare or Afghanistan or something else. But it is not hard to assess the health of a political movement. The hopes with which Democrats entered the Age of Obama have been damped.
It is increasingly questionable whether there is any such thing as an Age of Obama. The president’s constituency is personal, not partisan. His charisma turns out to be non-transferable. On Tuesday the bloc of new voters who turned out in droves to support him in 2008 – largely young people and minorities – were nowhere to be seen. Not even Mr Obama himself can summon them to vote for others. He visited New Jersey three times in the campaign’s closing weeks to stump for Jon Corzine, the unpopular Democratic governor, describing him as “one of the best partners I have in the White House”. But to no avail. Only 9 per cent of those who voted were under 30. Mr Corzine won them handily. But in Virginia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds did not. There, the youth vote was also anaemic – and Republican candidate Bob McDonnell won it by 10 points.
The energy of young people and minorities was the main grounds for arguing that Mr Obama’s election signalled a realignment. If Democratic candidates cannot take this vote for granted, they must win it with promises. On what? Gay marriage? (It has been repudiated 31 of the 31 times it has been placed on state referendums, as in Maine this week.) More open immigration? Ethnically targeted benefits? In a time of limited resources these are all recipes for alienating independent voters.
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