The Day After

New Jersey's race for governor ended with Jon Corzine winning by 9 percentage points. Now, for those who think that this is some sort of referrendum on the GOP or President Bush, here's a reality check:

New Jersey's voter registration shows that Democrats outnumber Republicans in New Jersey 1,157,177 to 893,854 with 2,760,558 unaffiliated. The official tally from yesterday's election? Corzine had 53%Forrester's 44% with 97% of precincts reporting. In terms of raw votes, Corzine got 1,152,367 votes to Forrester's 948,372.

For comparison's sake, the 2004 Presidential election had Kerry win 1,911,430 votes and Bush won 1,670,003 votes. That's a ratio of 53% for Kerry and 46% for Bush.

In other words, this wasn't a referrendum on Bush, but rather a continuation of relatively closely contested elections that find the Democrats winning because of their natural advantage in registered voters.

What the raw numbers from the 2005 race for governor show is that Forrester didn't get enough independent voters to swing his way while Corzine was able to maintain the Democratic party's advantage in registered voters. Corzine got far fewer independent voters than Forrester, but it wasn't enough to swing the vote.

I'll leave it to others to try and figure out whether the Joanne Corzine commericals did more harm than good for the Forrester campaign.

However, I will gaze into my crystal ball for a couple of new predictions on New Jersey - expect higher taxes in coming months. That gas tax that you heard about in the deep recesses of the newspapers? It will be raised in order to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund. Corporate income taxes? They'll be going up in order to fund the property tax rebates, which wont be as large as Corzine claimed.

Oh, and about that corruption? It will still be there, and Democrats throughout the state will get indicted for their participation. Some will even be close to Corzine himself, but Corzine will be spared of the worst of it.

UPDATE:
Newsbusters is among the websites wondering about the biased nature of headlines and stories that are spinning the results of the elections. (and fixed text in first paragraph).