Celebrating in Richmond: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, left, and Virginia governor-elect Bob McDonnell. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
By Mark Memmott
Good morning.
If you're just tuning back in, here are the highlights from Tuesday's elections:
-- Republicans took the two gubernatorial races, in Virginia and New Jersey.
-- A Democrat, Bill Owens, won New York's 23rd congressional district. That hadn't happened since before the Civil War. But the major reason was another civil war -- within the GOP.
-- Maine voters repealed a state law allowing same-sex marriages.
-- New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, was re-elected by a much smaller margin than anticipated.
-- Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a Democrat, won an unprecedented fifth term.
-- Houston's mayoral election is headed for a December runoff. City Controller Annise Parker could become Houston's first openly gay mayor. She'll face former city attorney Gene Locke.
-- There's also going to be a runoff for the mayor's post in Atlanta.
-- Dave Bing was elected to a full term as mayor of Detroit.
-- The race for mayor in Seattle likely won't be decided for days.
On Morning Edition, NPR news analyst Juan Williams said Bloomberg's narrow re-election underscores the "anti-incumbent" fever in much of the nation.
And, Juan said, Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in the Virginia governor's race stands out: The social conservative ran as a "pragmatic politician focused on solving the state's problems" and won, just a year after Democrat Barack Obama won the state in the presidential race.
Juan also believes that in the Virginia and New Jersey races, it wasn't Obama who was the issue. The economy was the overriding issue:
Our colleague Ken Rudin at the Political Junkie will have much more about the meaning of Tuesday's results. He and Frank were busy last night live-blogging.categories: Politics
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