Jay Cost at The Weekly Standard makes a compelling case that one of the reasons a Republican victory next Tuesday may seem ho-hum is that its arrival has been trumpeted for so long. After months of voter resentment over ObamaCare, the Recovery Act, and spiraling unemployment the notion that the GOP might surpass 1994’s gains can seem pedestrian.
Cost reminds us it isn’t. In fact, the intensity and location of voter resentment towards the liberal status quo could portend a possible realignment in states President Barack Obama won in 2008 to the GOP column.
The circumstantial evidence in favor of this? As Jim Geraghty’s Obi Wan noted yesterday, it’s all around us. We simply have gotten used to it. Ohio is all but gone for the Democrats, including the swingiest of swing districts in Columbus. Michigan is a lost cause. So is liberal icon Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. Pennsylvania looks like it will go maybe +4-6 for Toomey and Corbett. All of these places voted for Obama, and all of them are basically gone. Weak Republican candidates in Colorado and Nevada keep those races tight, but otherwise the toss-ups are: California, Illinois, West Virginia, and Washington. The last Republican presidential candidate to win all four of these? Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Whoever earns the GOP presidential nomination for 2012 will have the wind at their back and a groundswell of proven precinct walkers at the ready. We’ll see if the candidate can figure out how to use them.
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