Politics
Mitch McConnell Victory in Senate Kicks Off an Election Night With High G.O.P. Hopes
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, won re-election
Tuesday night, according to The Associated Press, the first victory in a
night that Republicans hope will sweep them into the majority and hand
the chamber’s gavel to Mr. McConnell.
The
five-term senator fought an intense and spirited campaign against
Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state, who Democrats
hoped would tap into voter frustration with Washington to end the career
of the longtime master of the Capitol’s legislative process.
In
addition, Republicans captured the first of the six Democratic seats
they must flip to gain control of the Senate, as Representative Shelley
Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, won election, replacing
Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat, who is retiring.
Eight
years after ceding control of the Senate, Republicans in Washington and
around the country on Tuesday watched as election returns began to roll
in from a dozen razor-close races, convinced that a popular revolt
against President Obama’s policies would soon deliver them the Congress
and a new national platform for their conservative agenda.
A
consensus of election-eve polls bolstered Republican spirits, giving
the party a clear advantage in most of the competitive Senate races.
Democrats, meanwhile, clung to hope that an urgent and robust turnout
effort, modeled on Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns, would rally their
supporters to save the party’s majority in the Senate.
But
even Mr. Obama, the party’s top cheerleader, appeared dispirited late
Tuesday. Calling into a Hartford radio show, the president seemed ready
to concede defeat in an election that will shape the balance of his time
in the White House and could constrain his legacy.
“This
is probably the worst possible group of states for Democrats since
Dwight Eisenhower,” Mr. Obama said. “There are a lot of states that are
being contested where they just tend to tilt Republican, and Democrats
are competitive, but they tend to tilt that way.”
In
other early results, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South
Carolina, easily won re-election after earlier fighting back a primary
challenge, The A.P. reported. Senator Tim Scott, a South Carolina
Republican who was appointed in 2013 to replace a retiring senator, won
another two years in office. And Nikki Haley, the state’s Republican
governor, won another term.
In
other Senate races, Senator Susan Collins, a three-term Republican from
Maine, won re-election. Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New
Jersey, was elected to his first full term after winning a special
election last year. Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican from Mississippi,
barely survived a contentious primary and won re-election, while
Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who was appointed
last year, won election to his first full six-year term.
Voters at the Polls
CreditBryan Thomas for The New York Times
In
preliminary results from exit polls, voters who cast ballots on Tuesday
expressed deep frustration about Mr. Obama, Congress and the overall
direction of the country.
Nearly
half of all voters said the economy — a subject for which candidates
offered few serious solutions on the campaign trail — was the issue most
on their minds, almost double the number who picked health care.
Roughly two-thirds of the voters in North Carolina said the country was
“seriously off track,” and six in 10 expressed negative opinions of the
Obama administration.
Early
exit poll results showed that a majority of voters disapprove of the
job Mr. Obama is doing as president, and most said they are dissatisfied
or angry with his administration. Disapproval of the president looks
similar to what it was in the 2010 midterm elections, when 55 percent
disapproved.
With
multiple races still close across the nation, the dueling political
parties, candidates and advocacy groups on Tuesday unleashed a final
fevered push to drive voters to the polls in a year when a sophisticated
ground game became an increasingly vital element of electoral
strategies.
After
months of sending desperate emails pleading for money, the candidates
turned to emails pleading for people to vote. Some of the messages
sounded quite urgent.
“First
things first,” said one from Senator Mark Udall, the Colorado Democrat
who needs a surge of supporters to come from behind for a re-election
win. “If you haven’t voted yet, stop reading this right now and go
vote.”
The
last-minute activities ranged from high-tech digital programs to
identify those who had not yet voted to the most old-fashioned approach
of all — straightforward door-knocking.
“It’s
an all-out get-out-the-vote push on Election Day, talking to voters at
their doors, on their phones, through Facebook and via digital ads to
ensure everyone goes to the polls in a midterm election with control of
the Senate at stake,” said Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the
Republican National Committee.
Republicans
have trailed Democrats in recent elections in the area of voter contact
and took steps this election cycle to close the gap, particularly given
the intense Democratic effort to focus on early voting in key states
and reach voters who participate in presidential election years but tend
to skip the midterm contests.
“Based
on our predictive analytics and public numbers in states like Colorado
and Iowa, there’s no doubt we’ve closed the Democrats’ historical
advantage heading into Election Day and look forward to a big day
today,” Ms. Kukowski said.
But
Democrats say they have intensified their own ground game to new levels
and expect that effort to make a significant difference in the outcome
in places like Alaska and North Carolina, as well as Colorado and Iowa.
Officials
of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said their staff and
volunteers were expected to make 2.8 million phone calls on Tuesday to
prospective voters in nine key states and knock on 1.3 million doors.
They were anticipating 1.4 million phone calls in Iowa and Colorado
alone, and 425,000 door knocks in North Carolina.
At
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, it was all hands on
deck as staff members who usually churn out news releases were among
those joining in the phone calls to try to save some embattled incumbent
members of Congress.
“The
most important thing we can do right now is talk to actual voters,”
said Emily Bittner, a spokeswoman for the Democratic campaign group.
Polling
places began to fill up early, as voters arrived to cast their ballots
in elections that will shape the balance of Mr. Obama’s term and serve
as the opening bell for another presidential campaign over the next two
years.
As
voters left the ballot box Tuesday, many said they had voted in the
hopes of seeing something change in Washington. Others complained about
gridlock in the capital, faulting Mr. Obama or Republicans for refusing
to compromise.
“I
think the Democratic policies are failing,” said Juan Neyra, 69, a
retired security guard in Denver, who said he used to vote Democratic
but this year voted for Senator Udall’s Republican opponent, Cory
Gardner. “Obama has not accomplished what he promised to the community.
And Udall supports Obama.”
In
Georgia, William Burke, 66, a retired lawyer, said he had voted for
David Perdue, the Republican senatorial candidate. He said Michelle
Nunn, the Democratic candidate, was simply running away from her true
nature as a liberal.
“I don’t object to her supporting Barack Obama,” Mr. Burke said. “But she needs to stop pretending that she isn’t.”
Nancy Prominski, 56, an independent voter in Salem, Mass., said she went to the polls on Tuesday with Mr. Obama’s health care law at the front of her mind, and voted for Scott Brown, the Republican who is trying to unseat Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
Voters Around the Nation on Election Day
Voters in Manchester, N.H., Manhattan
Beach, Calif., Overland Park, Kan., Greensboro, N.C., Arlington, Va.,
and Miami spoke out from polling stations on Tuesday.
Video by Quynhanh Do on
Publish Date November 4, 2014.
Photo by Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
“Nothing
against Jeanne Shaheen, but if you both vote the status quo, it’s not
working,” Ms. Prominski said. “Obama is not working and I don’t support
where he has the country headed. We’re not a better country now. We’re
worse off.”
Referring
to Mr. Obama, Ms. Prominski said, “He’s off base with the general
population, and we need change. We’re gridlocked, we can’t do anything.”
In
Connecticut, some polling places reported having to turn away early
risers because the voting rolls had not arrived, but it was unclear how
extensive the problem was. A spokesman for the campaign of Gov. Dannel
P. Malloy said it was requesting that the courts extend voting hours.
Mr. McConnell, the minority leader, cast his ballot in Louisville as he looked toward the possibility that his Republican Party
would gain control of the Senate and make him the majority leader.
Other candidates also began arriving at their polling places after
last-minute handshaking at street corners.
In
Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate for governor,
sent out a Twitter message declaring, “Found 2 votes at our last house,
now headed to Worcester!”
The
two parties also arrived Tuesday at the end of long campaigns for House
seats and governorships. The outcomes of several bitterly fought
statehouse races in Florida, Wisconsin, Georgia and Texas promised to
offer some insight into the frustrated mood of voters in some key
battleground states ahead of the presidential contest in 2016.
For
Republicans, the anticipation of victory Tuesday morning was clear,
with the party’s leaders openly betting that the election’s results
would offer a salve to them for Mr. Obama’s back-to-back presidential
wins.
“Victory is in the air,” Mr. McConnell said at a rally Monday.
Faced
with many grim predictions of deep losses, Democrats entered the final
day of Campaign 2014 hoping to somehow block a Republican takeover of
the Senate and head off the prospect of two years of congressional
investigations and presidential vetoes to block a conservative agenda.
The
two parties faced the voters on Election Day against a backdrop of a
steadily improving economy but also heightened anxiety among Americans
about how the world’s crises — Ebola, terrorists in the Mideast,
economic uncertainty abroad — will affect them. But while polls have for
months documented the public’s dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama, there
remained substantial questions about which politicians voters would
punish for failing to make them feel more secure.
How to Watch Election Night
David Leonhardt, editor of The Upshot,
offers an animated look at the six states to watch as Democrats try to
beat the odds and maintain control of the Senate.
Video by Aaron Byrd and Emily B. Hager on
Publish Date November 3, 2014.
Desperately hoping to preserve its control of the Senate for the president’s final two years in office, the Democratic Party
focused its final, urgent push in Iowa, Colorado, North Carolina and
several other states where their candidates must rely on a strong
showing from women, minorities and young voters who twice helped to
elect Mr. Obama.
In
Denver and four other cities in Colorado, labor groups planned 10 hours
of door-knocking in an effort to round up enough voters to send Senator
Udall back to Washington for a second term. Across the country, the
Democratic National Committee and other party groups prepared to deploy
urgent voting reminders by telephone and text message. The committee
employed paid staff in two dozen states in an effort to make sure that
its supporters were not denied the right to vote Tuesday, officials
said.
Representative
Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic
National Committee, said she had confidence in her party’s extensive
ability to identify its supporters, much the way Mr. Obama’s campaign
relentlessly targeted voters in 2008 and 2012.
“We’re
chasing absentee ballots, making phone calls, knocking on the doors and
making sure that we use our sophisticated digital advantage to identify
voters who haven’t cast a ballot yet,” she said.
Republican
activists and operatives pressed what analysts said was the party’s
strong advantage heading into Tuesday’s voting by employing election-day
tactics similar to those perfected by Mr. Obama’s presidential
campaigns. In 26 states, volunteers prepared for a final day of knocking
on doors and placing last-minute calls to supporters who the Republican
National Committee and other groups identified as unlikely to bother to
vote.
“We’ve
been very successful since changing our strategy to turning out low
propensity voters before Election Day, and we expect a very good day,”
said Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the committee.
With
several states apparently out of reach for Democrats, Republican
activists focused their final-day push in places like Louisiana,
Georgia, Alaska, Iowa and Colorado — states where winning was likely to
put the party closer to full control of Capitol Hill. In Washington,
Republican National Committee officials said they would monitor the
efforts from a war room at the party’s headquarters near the Capitol
building.
Mr.
Obama cleared his public schedule on Tuesday and prepared to hunker
down at the White House after using the election’s final weekend to
campaign for the only Democratic candidates who wanted him: those in
states that he easily carried in his two presidential campaigns. By
contrast, Mr. Obama did not campaign over the weekend for his party’s
most endangered incumbents, who have sought to distance themselves from
the president and his policies.
In
North Carolina, however, Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat, did start
airing a radio ad on Monday featuring Mr. Obama in the hopes of
motivating African-American voters. In the ad, the president says:
“Voting is easy, so stand with me, President Obama, and take
responsibility in moving North Carolina forward by voting for Kay Hagan
on Nov. 4.”
The
president’s aides predicted a blizzard of speculation after Tuesday’s
election about what message angry and frustrated voters were trying to
send to Mr. Obama. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, on
Monday explained that because many of the closest Senate races are
taking place in conservative states that Mr. Obama lost in 2012, the
outcomes of those contests will not say much about what the broader
public thinks of Mr. Obama’s policies.
“It
would not be wise to draw as broad a conclusion about the outcome of
the election as you would from a national presidential election,” Mr.
Earnest told the reporters.
But
the results of Tuesday’s contests are likely to affect Mr. Obama’s last
two years in office, no matter how they turn out. The president is
almost certain to face both a Senate and a House with greater numbers of
Republicans. Observers in both parties said they expect the House
speaker, John A. Boehner, to increase his majority slightly.
The
political math in Washington could force Mr. Obama to seek compromises
with Republicans on areas like trade, infrastructure spending and a
corporate tax overhaul, as some advisers have suggested. Or it could
deepen the gridlock in Washington as both sides turn their attention to
the presidential campaigns.
Correction: November 4, 2014
An earlier version of a slide show that appeared with this article on the home page and politics section of NYTimes.com misstated the office of Jeanne Shaheen. She is in the Senate, not the House. An earlier version of this article also misstated the location of a town where one woman voted. It was Salem, N.H., not Salem, Mass.
An earlier version of a slide show that appeared with this article on the home page and politics section of NYTimes.com misstated the office of Jeanne Shaheen. She is in the Senate, not the House. An earlier version of this article also misstated the location of a town where one woman voted. It was Salem, N.H., not Salem, Mass.
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