Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, cruised toward re-election Tuesday night, shrugging off ties to an unpopular president and unprecedented spending by the Democratic Party to make the red state competitive.
Daniels, President Bush’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, held onto his job by emphasizing his economic skills in a year when Democratic leaders sought to translate heavy voter turnout and financial woes into gubernatorial victories.
That strategy had better luck in Missouri, where Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon won the seat of departing Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican. Nixon defeated Republican U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof in a race dominated by the woeful economy.
Eleven gubernatorial seats were at stake in Tuesday’s voting, with Democrats already in control of 28 across the nation, compared with 22 held by Republicans. At stake is substantial influence over redistricting after the 2010 census, which experts say could alter the composition of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Governors’ races are less heavily influenced by national politics than Senate contests, said Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association.
West Virginia’s Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, handily won a second term Tuesday, and at least four of the other races appeared likely to be won by their two Democrat and two Republican incumbents. But Puerto Rico voters turned out of office indicted Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila in favor of his GOP opponent, Luis Fortuno, who is currently a nonvoting member of Congress.
Tight races were fought in North Carolina and Washington, which featured blisteringly negative campaign ads and record-setting expenditures from outside groups. The Republican Governors Association invested $6 million in both states to wrest them from Democratic control, more than 5 1/2 times the amount the group paid four years ago for television, phone and direct-mail campaigns, according to executive director Nick Ayers.
Democrats, meanwhile, spent $4 million in each of those states in a bid to maintain power, Daschle said.
The Washington contest pitted current Gov. Chris Gregoire, a Democrat, against former GOP state Sen. Dino Rossi, who was vying to become the state’s first Republican governor in nearly three decades. The same candidates met four years ago, in a contest that Gregoire won only after three recounts.
In North Carolina, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue was locked in a close race with Charlotte’s Republican mayor, Pat McCrory. Democrats have controlled that governorship for 16 years, and McCrory painted Perdue as a representative of the state’s stagnant political culture. Results in both states were still being tabulated in the early evening.
