I don’t know about you but I’m still a bit shell-shocked by the election results last night. I think we knew it was possible that Christine O’Donnell could win, but didn’t think it was probable. Let’s assess besides O’Donnell & Castle who are the winners and losers from last night’s primary?
Winners
Sarah Palin & Tea Party Express
When O’Donnell began her surge about 2 weeks ago she had the backing of some obscure rightwing groups like Concerned Women for America. After Murkowski’s loss, Castle & the Delaware GOP opened up on O’Donnell with everything and at least from our perspective, looked to have stalled her momentum. Sarah Palin stuck out her neck to endorse O’Donnell. The DeMint, NRA & Bachmann endorsements all came after Palin. Despite Palin’s spotty record she now will have the (deserved) reputation as kingmaker.
PPP Polls
PPP Polls also stuck out their neck on this race. They were the only pollster willing to come in the final week before the race and they captured the O’Donnell surge. Not only did they catch the O’Donnell surge but they were willing to say O’Donnell could win by even more (from a post on Monday):
There’s a pretty wide range of outcomes that would not surprise me tomorrow given the difficulties of polling a Republican electorate in a small blue state. It would be no shock if Castle hangs on to win but when you look at the internal numbers and compare them to Murkowski I also wouldn’t be all that surprised if O’Donnell ends up winning by 10.
Chris Coons
This one is obvious. Overnight the U.S. Senate seat in Delaware switched from “likely Republican” to “likely Democrat.” PPP tweeted some of their general election numbers – O’Donnell favorability is 29/50 and only 31% of Delawareans think she’s fit to hold office. Democrats can’t afford to get complacent here but O’Donnell is pretty well defined already while Coons is more of an unknown.
Losers
GOP Establishment
There’s a lot of blame to pass around here. The Delaware GOP is no doubt reeling right now. The whole organization was organized to support Mike Castle and spent the last month attacking Christine O’Donnell. I don’t see how the Delaware GOP survives. O’Donnell is now the top Republican in the state. I think she is justified to ask for the resignations of Tom Ross and other officials. The NRSC and John Cornyn are also losers here. Mike Castle is one of their top recruits and seeing him fail is a blow. In fact, the NRSC has already announced they’re pulling out of the state. Not to worry though, I’m sure Christine will have plenty of Tea Party money. I think it’s obvious now that the GOP is run by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and Rush Limbaugh. Even Karl Rove is on the outs. Check out Karl Rove arguing with Sean Hannity over O’Donnell:
Delaware
I know we’ve spent a lot of time bashing Mike Castle, who deserves criticism for not standing up to the forces of his own party. However, it is quite sad to see a long career of service to Delaware end in the fashion it did last night. O’Donnell won by distorting Castle’s record, turning his 90% record of voting with the GOP into a “liberal” voting record. Delaware’s reputation for clean politics has taken a beating as well.
Pragmatism
The Republican Party’s hard right turn has given a blow to moderate Republicans and concept of bipartisanship. I think it’s always been a bit of a pipe dream but the new configuration of the GOP is absolutely committed to not doing anything with Democrats. I fear for our country – gridlock means we won’t be able to address important issues (like unemployment). The defeat of Castle sends a clear signal to GOP lawmakers – we don’t want you to work with Democrats. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have to be quaking in their boots right now.
Beau Biden
I know he had his reasons for not running and hopefully he’s still happy with his decision. If one of Biden’s main concerns was taking on popular Mike Castle, how dumb do you think he’s feeling right now?