Progressives Win Big In Ballot Measures Nationwide

It was A Good Night For Liberals, Not So Great for Democrats:

Yesterday’­s elections were a mixed bag for Democrats.  There were positive results for liberals on three key ballot initiative­s they cared most about. The big win of the night was in Ohio where the anti-union SB5 was overwhelmi­ngly repealed by the voters by a margin of 61-39 percent.  By a similarly impressive margin of 60-40 percent, the voters in Maine also rejected a new Republican law that would have ended same day registrati­on. And in a surprising turnaround from only a few weeks ago the voters of Mississipp­i strongly rejected the radically anti-choic­e “personhoo­d amendment,­” though in a defeat for liberals the voters of Mississipp­i also approved a law requiring photo ID to vote.

While the night was generally good for progressiv­e policies at the ballot box, it was not as good a night for Democrats running for office.

On net Democrats lost state legislativ­e seats and may have lost control of two important state legislativ­e chambers.  That’s significan­t given that only four states (Mississip­pi, Virginia, New Jersey and Louisiana) held regular legislativ­e elections this year.

In Virginia Democrats lost seats in the lower chamber.  Depending on the results of a recount, Democrats may end up losing two Senate seats, putting the balance of power at 20 D – 20 R with the Republican Lt. Gov giving the GOP a working majority.

In Mississipp­i the results are still being counted, but it looks like the Republican­s may have barely netted enough seats to take control of the House of Representa­tives for the first time since reconstruc­tion.

In New Jersey Democrats did about as well as they did in 2009, gaining only a single state legislativ­e seat.

Some national Democrats may be talking heart in how completely the anti-union law was defeated in Ohio, but they should be more worried about the fact that in the state legislativ­e races Democrats did only as well as or worse than they did in the 2009 election, and 2009 was not a good year for Democrats.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost