So how did this happen? There are two answers to the question, depending on what you mean by the question.
First, the votes. Where did Christine win?
O’Donnell won 12,369 votes in New Castle County, 6,151 in Kent and 12,041 in Sussex, for a total of 30,561 and 2-1 wins in Kent and Sussex County over Castle. Meanwhile, Castle beat O’Donnell by 4,500 votes in New Castle County, garnering 16,891 votes, 3,518 votes in Kent and 6,612 votes in Sussex, for a statewide total of 27,021. So what happened is what we all knew could happen, and Christine’s only path to victory: “Run up the score in Kent and Sussex and lose closely in New Castle County (or at least avoid having Castle run up a huge score).
So that is the technical how. For Republicans hungover today (from either joy or mourning), a different path to victory will be required for Christine, as there are nearly more Democrats in New Castle County then there are total voters (Republicans and Democrats and Independents) in Kent and Sussex County.
The philosophical how is a different question. Allan Loudell touches on the answer:
But the other significant factor which has been lost in much of the national media coverage: Today’s Delaware Republican Party – and I’m referring here to rank-and-file voters – is vastly different from the Delaware G.O.P. of a decade or certainly two decades ago. Rather like a comet shedding its very essence as it nears the sun, the upstate Delaware G.O.P. has been shedding voters, who have re-registered as independents, or took the plunge to register as “D’s”. To be sure, some Delaware Republicans have re-registered Democrat only to vote in a particular election. This happened in 2008, when a contingent of upstate Republicans shifted to the D’s to vote in the Democratic Presidential and Gubernatorial primaries, particularly for Jack Markell. You can bet many INTENDED to swing back to the G.O.P., but never got around to it.
Delaware Republicans for generations were of the Northeast variety, such as Nelson Rockefeller and former Delaware GOP Governor Russell Peterson. They were moderates, but were called “liberal” Republicans. Indeed, Peterson, a dedicated environmentalist, is not a Republican anymore. He is a Democrat. That is not an isolated event. The parties have realigned. The Democrats used to have many conservatives within the party, especially in the South (both nationally and locally), but the events of the 1960’s and the Civil Rights Movement changed that real quick. And now, the events of the 1990’s and the 21st Century are driving moderates and liberals away from their old Republican Party, sometimes screaming, as in last night.
Sure, some Republicans may have switched over their registration to become Democrats in 2008 so they could create a little mischef, or perhaps some were geniunely wanting to vote for Markell in his primary against Carney. If these Republicans had the former motivation, to create some mischef, then they probably are heavily engaged in politics and would have switched right back to being Republicans as soon as possible. Indeed, I was telling someone last night that I don’t think I could ever register as a Republican, as I would automatically feel unclean and soulless, and that if I should die as a Republican I would go directly to Hell; but … if I did register as a Rethug, I would change that registration so fast after that primary that I would be waiting at the Elaine Manlove’s door the next morning.
So what we are really talking about is Republicans who have the latter motivation, in that they switched to vote for Markell for geniune reasons. If that is the case, they are most likely Castle voters. So yes, that contributed to Castle’s loss. But this contribution is a symptom of the larger problem that reduced the Grand Ole Party to the state it is in today, where it will be three or four generations before it will be able to complete for state wide offices.
Moderates are not welcome in the Republican party any more. The Teabaggers themselves will tell you that. In fact, the Teabaggers want to literally kill all moderate Republicans (see the death threats against Ross et al). And this is not a new thing. For years now, moderates have become fewer and far between in the GOP.
So how did this happen?
It happened because the Republican Party has become so conservative and so extreme that reasonable moderates and even some sane conservatives no longer feel comfortable having an (R) after their name anymore. It happened because the DE GOP has not matured as it got older. It has devolved. It is a shell of its former self, and that was in 2008, when Bill Lee had to be dragged home from a Florida vacation just so that the party could have a candidate for Governor. It is actually worse now. O’Donnell is now the nominee, and four years ago, she finished third…. BEHIND MIKE PORNSTACHE PROTACK!!!
Does this sound like a party has is growing its tent and reaching out to more voters?
No. It is a party that is being distilled down to the very pure conservative ideological fringe.
Radicals like Frank Knotts and David Anderson and Angel over at Delaware Politics are happy today. They won’t be for much longer. They have won the battle for the soul of the Republican Party, but it is a pyrrhic victory.