WASHINGTON — For Republicans across the nation, the best news in Tuesday's election may have been that more was not at stake.
With President Bush facing his lowest job approval ratings and polls showing widespread dissatisfaction over the country's direction, the GOP suffered a series of bruising blows -- from decisive losses in the New Jersey and Virginia governor's races to the clean-sweep rejection of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives and even the resounding defeat of Randy Kelly, a Democratic mayor in St. Paul, Minn., who was hurt politically because he campaigned last year for the president.
Most Democratic strategists acknowledged that the results would not necessarily predict next year's midterm elections, when the ballot will be more crowded with House, Senate and gubernatorial races. Bush and the congressional GOP have a year to regain support and restore momentum.
But many Democrats, and even some Republicans, said Tuesday's outcomes offered a preview of the difficulties the GOP can expect next fall if the party cannot improve its standing before then.
"The waning of enthusiasm for Bush and his presidency is national," said veteran Democratic pollster Stanley B. Greenberg. "The dynamics look different today than the dynamics that enabled [Republicans] to win the presidency and hold their control of Congress" in recent elections.
Off-year elections, inexorably shaped by local concerns and the qualities of the candidates, never produce an entirely consistent pattern. The races usually yield an unpredictable assortment of winners and losers.
One of the clearest losers Tuesday was Kelly, St. Paul's Democratic mayor who last year endorsed Bush. Voters in the heavily Democratic city ousted him in favor of former City Council member Chris Coleman, a Democrat who won by more than two-to-one.
One of the biggest winners wasn't on the ballot: outgoing Democratic Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner, whose stratospheric approval rating in his state (80% in one recent survey) helped carry his Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to victory over Republican Jerry W. Kilgore in the governor's race.
Warner, who's exploring a bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, said Kaine's victory showed the two men had developed a model for winning in Republican-leaning red states that includes bipartisanship, fiscal discipline and grabbing what he termed "the sensible center."
