My first diary here, but it's worth it on three hours sleep. Cross-posted from the excellent Blue Mass Group.
Last night was a great night for Democrats in America, and perhaps nowhere more so than in my home region of New England.
Last night in New England we replaced Scott Brown with Elizabeth Warren (!!!!!), Joe Lieberman with Chris Murphy, Olympia Snowe with Angus King, and resoundingly re-elected Bernie Sanders and Sheldon Whitehouse. It looks like Maine voters approved same-sex marriage and Massachusetts voters approved medical marijuana.
If there was any real disappointment to the Democrats nationwide this year, it was the U.S. House elections. Gains appear to be minimal, despite knocking off symbols of Tea Party insanity like Allen West and Joe Walsh and nearly toppling Michele Bachmann. But, with John Tierney’s close win in a tough year for him, we once again have every single U.S. House seat in the six New England states held by Democrats.
There's more.
New Hampshire now becomes the first state in U.S. history to have the governorship and every single Congressional seat in both houses held by women, thanks to the election (restoration) of Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster to the U.S. House and the election of Maggie Hassan as governor. Those women join Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte. Obviously this is easier to do in a state with fewer House districts, but it’s a great thing nonetheless and worthy of celebrating as progress, particularly on the day we wake up to Massachusetts’ first female Senator-elect ever. Even better is that four of those five female officeholders in New Hampshire are Democrats. We’re going to have to start calling it Blue Hampshire.
Preliminary returns indicate that we held all the Democratic State Senate seats in Massachusetts and flipped a couple of Republican Mass. House districts (Steven Levy and Middle Finger Ross appearing to lose), while losing only one (2d Essex, Leonard Mirra wins a close one over Barry Fogel in Rep. Harriet Stanley’s district). The Dems may have added slightly to a 127-33 majority on Beacon Hill.
Romney lost in Massachusetts in a rout, 61-37, doing only one point better than John McCain in 2008 (62-36). Romney lost in ALL 14 counties in Massachusetts. And again, folks, he was GOVERNOR here not too long ago. It should tell America something that he can't crack 40% in a state he governed only 6 years ago. To know Mitt is not to love Mitt.
This is striking to me. There are 67 counties in the six New England states. As of this morning it seems President Obama carried 62 of them. Romney did not break 53% in any of them, which is remarkable considering he was a governor here and won the New Hampshire primary so handily. In New England Romney appears to have carried Litchfield County, Ct. and Piscataquis County in the Maine north woods by about three points each, and three counties in New Hampshire (Belknap and Rockingham by 5-6 points each, and Hillsborough by a very thin margin with votes still not counted). That's it, out of 67 counties.
All in all, a significant repudiation of the GOP and its Presidential standard-bearer in Blue England.