WASHINGTON — Voters in races across the country today will put the Republican Party to its most significant test since President Bush's re-election, with Democrats looking to grab momentum in governor's races, mayoral campaigns and ballot initiatives that could lead them to bigger gains in 2006's midterm congressional elections and the presidential race in 2008.
Coveting a badly needed political victory, Bush put his own clout on the line Monday night in today's races by heading straight from a five-day Latin American summit to a rally for Jerry Kilgore, the GOP's gubernatorial candidate in Virginia. The campaign is widely considered a toss-up between Kilgore and Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, in a state Bush carried by 8 percentage points a year ago.
In New Jersey, Sen. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, is favored to claim the governor's office today, but his lead over Republican businessman Doug Forrester has narrowed in recent days, giving Forrester's party hope of taking a state that Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., claimed in his run for president last year. Still, Corzine is expected to win despite a cloud of scandal and corruption that has lingered over state Democratic leaders.
Just a year ago, Bush won a second term and expanded the GOP majorities in the House and the Senate. But now, after political stumbles by Bush and some Republican lawmakers, Democrats hope for a big Election Day that will stoke party optimism for gaining ground in Congress next year and perhaps retaking the White House in 2008.
"There is a sense that we're on the verge of seeing a repudiation of Bush and the Republicans," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Sometimes there is some message-sending in elections. And that is mainly going to be anti-Bush."
Republicans, however, warn against drawing national implications from Tuesday's races.
Democrats, for example, won governorships in Virginia and New Jersey in November 2001, despite Bush's soaring popularity just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A year later, Republicans picked up seats in the 2002 midterm elections, tightening their grip on the White House and Congress.
"We need to look at these for what they are: local races based on local candidates and their views," said Danny Diaz, a Republican National Committee spokesman, referring to the Virginia and New Jersey elections. "I don't know that these races are determinate of larger trends."
Still, some prominent Republicans appear vulnerable.
Two years after he swept out a Democrat in a high-profile recall election, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has staked his political future on four ballot initiatives that appear headed for defeat. Schwarzenegger, his popularity sliding, personally pushed for the referendums; their defeat would deliver a big blow to his re-election prospects next year and give Democrats an opportunity to take full political control of the nation's most populous state.
In St. Paul, Minn., Mayor Randy Kelly, a Democrat who endorsed Bush last year, entered Election Day trailing fellow Democrat Chris Coleman by as many as 40 percentage points in recent polls. Kelly's support for Bush became a major issue in the race, which is taking place in the capital of a so-called "battleground state" that will feature a race for an open Senate seat next year.
Perhaps the lone GOP bright spot this year is in New York City, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is predicted to win re-election in a landslide. But Bloomberg's platform is significantly more liberal than Bush's, and the Big Apple — long a Democratic stronghold — hardly represents fertile GOP territory.
Political analysts agree it is hard to draw conclusions from "off-year" elections, the statewide and municipal races that are wedged between presidential and congressional campaigns. Typically there are few heated contests, so gubernatorial and mayor's races usually turn on local issues and there's time for any national themes to fade by next year, when all House members and a third of the Senate stand for reelection.
But Democrats who want 2006 to be their version of 1994's Republican Revolution want 2005 to do for them what 1993 did for the Republicans. That year, the Republicans took gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey and the New York City mayor's race, wins that analysts said were the first rumblings of a backlash against President Bill Clinton. A year later, the GOP seized control of both the House and Senate.
Wins in New Jersey and Virginia would show that Democrats can appeal to independents in states that have chosen governors from both parties, said Bill Richardson, New Mexico governor and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.
"If independent voters start breaking our way in this election, that's a good omen for '06 and '08," Richardson said. "It's a good signal that we retain New Jersey, and it's even better if we win in a Southern state like Virginia."
Those stakes explain the president's surprise decision to appear beside Kilgore in Richmond Monday night, in addition to the Republican National Committee's extensive attention to grass-roots organizing in the final days of campaigning in the Old Dominion. A win in Virginia could help steady a stumbling Republican Party, while Democratic triumphs would give them fresh energy and momentum heading into congressional elections, Sabato said.
"They're sweating this one out," he said.
Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said the GOP at minimum needs to take one of the two governor's seats along with the New York City mayor's office. A Republican sweep — although considered unlikely — could demoralize Democrats, he said.
"If all three go Republican, they're going to be popping champagne corks in the White House," Baker said.
Win or lose, Republicans see hopeful signs from New Jersey, where Corzine was heavily favored from the start but has faced a tough challenger in Forrester, himself a millionaire politician. Although Corzine tried to tie Forrester to Bush, Forrester has done a better job linking Corzine to the state's Democratic establishment, which has been reeling since former governor James McGreevey resigned in disgrace last year amid charges that he gave his lover a job as a state homeland security adviser.
That race suggests the difficulties Democrats could have as they seek to run campaigns based on national issues, Baker said. Although Bush could be a drag on Republican candidates, the president will never appear on a ballot again.
"In some of these races, particularly in New Jersey, local candidates emerge so distinctly," Baker said. "The election in New Jersey is closer than it has any right to be."