Was the Massachusetts Special Election as telling as everyone seems to think it is?

That's an interesting question, and may have a surprising answer.

Exhibit A: The Massachusetts Special Election was, not surprisingly very special, as I've already written about. This means it's not an indicator of what should normally happen in Massachusetts during a regular election.

Exhibit B: The win margin was not very high. Brown won by 5 points, which means he won 52% to 47%. I really think it's worth not overlooking this fact. If he had won by a significant margin, like, say the Virginia Gubernatorial (Governor) 2009 election where the same Republican resurgence caused Republican Bob McDonnell to trounce his opponent (Deeds) by 18 points, 59% to 41%, it would be a different story. But unlike all of the news media is reporting it, Brown barely eked out a win here. Compare a map of the Massachusetts results with a map of the Virginia results. Unlike Virginia which is a sheet of red, in Massachusetts Democratic strongholds still remain in Boston, in the west, and in various other sporadic locations. If Scott Brown had been able to tangibly convert these areas, particularly in Boston, this would be a much more significant victory. But lack of Republican penetration there is telling. In fact, the main reason that he won brings us to the next exhibit.

Exhibit C: Turnout. Turnout is absolutely the most important factor to consider in analyzing a special election, and in Massachusetts the turnout was surprisingly high, almost 55% of the registered electorate. This is not a high value for a regular election year, but closer to an "off" (non-presidential) regular election year. For comparison, the 2008 election had a turnout of 66%. In the above link it is also clear that turnout was the highest among Brown strongholds, and on the other end, fairly low in Coakley strongholds, particularly in Boston. What this means to me, is that there was less turnover than it looks. In other words, Brown generated enthusiasm and he got out the vote, but he did not win the kind of substantial conversion amongst independents that he needed to to make this election very significant. It is relatively safe to say that Brown's voters are the roughly 1 million that turned out to vote for McCain during the election in 2008 including a modest conversion of independents. But the 1 million or so who voted for Coakley don't seem to include the other million who voted for Obama last time (Obama had about 2 million votes; McCain acquired about 1 million). This factor coupled with the fact that it was Coakley strongholds which saw the least turnout points to the conclusion that Brown won more because Democrats and Democratic supporting independents didn't show up than because he had converted large swaths of the electorate. This conclusion would indicate that Brown really will have to fight for his seat when he's up for re-election, and that the Democrats should be more worried about re-energizing Democrats than fearing a Republican resurgence especially in traditionally blue states like Massachusetts.

Exhibit D: Coakley was not a good candidate, most pundits have over talked this issue, but it seems clear that if she had been more engaging and a little more anti-establishment she would have probably beat Brown at his own game.

Exhibit E: Brown, while being a Republican and while agreeing to block health care reform, is not that conservative. This is Massachusetts we're talking about. Socially, he's not so far behind the times, and his credentials suggest that he will be a different, more independent-minded kind of Republican. I really believe that Massachusetts was voting more for the person than the party in this case, which means this isn't as much a victory for Republicans as it is a defeat for Democrats. And a close defeat at that.


So maybe this election isn't as foreboding as it has appeared to be. Yes this temporarily puts a wrench in the works, but the Dems still have 59 seats, and are unlikely to lose 9 of them in the 2010 election, at least not at this point, and not with the economy on the rebound. They may be more hard pressed to successfully make progress, but at the very least this little election isn't going to propel us back to the Bush years, not even close.