NJ-Sen: Where's the GOP blowback?

Sean Trende
‏@SeanTrende
n=1, weird circumstances, but yesterday's NJ-Sen results weren't particularly consistent w massive electoral blowback against the GOP.

The New Jersey senate race was the first Federal election since the shutdown. It was the ideal election for GOP blowback.

1) It occurred when blowback should've been the worst, right at the longest point of the shutdown.

2) The Republican candidate was running as an unapologetic Ted Cruz Republican, complete with a Sarah Palin campaign stop.

3) The Democrat was African-American, running when Chris Mathews and MSNBC are saying every night that the shutdown was due to Republican racism.

Yet Steve Lonegan did better than any Republican in a Senate race since 2000, when a sitting Republican congressman ran. One election isn't an indicator of anything, but this should've been an election to show something.

Some of Trende's replies agree that there wouldn't be blowback next year. Others decide to dismiss this result and point to the Virginia gubernatorial race:

Steven Morton ‏@smorton101368 11m
@SeanTrende Cuccinelli is the real test, IMO.

Cucinelli isn't running in a Federal race and is running in a state with the highest percentage of Federal workers. So he's not in a typical race. The polling, before the shutdown, had Cucinelli down 6. If he loses by 6, I'm guessing Democrats will see this as blowback. Real blowback would be if he loses by 11, although Cucinelli has run such a bad campaign it's difficult to point to blowback as the only reason for a nose dive.