US Elections

The biggest election news of the year was certainly Barack Obama’s re-election as President of the United States. Obama won 51% of the vote and 332 Electoral Colleges to Romney’s 47% and 206 Electoral Colleges. Although the victory was decisive for Obama, all through the race the media outlets were calling the election neck-and-neck. Some pundits believed that it would be the closest election the US has ever seen (clearly forgetting just how close the 2000 election was). Apart from Romney, one of the biggest losers was Karl Rove. Rove sees himself as a kingmaker having helped George W. Bush get elected in 2000 and 2004 and helping with the election of Republicans in the 2010 mid-terms. Despite his previous successes, his future is uncertain thanks to his failure in the 2012 elections. Rove ran two superPACs, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, together the PACs spent over $300 million on the Presidential race and some Senatorial races. In every single race Rove invested in, the Republican in that race lost. Combine that with his live meltdown on Fox news during the election, Rove’s future is certainly unsafe.

Obama can certainly be delighted with his win, he is only the fourth president in the last century to win two elections with over 50% of the popular vote, the others were FDR (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944), Eisenhower (1952 and 1956) and Reagan (1980 and 1984). For Democrats the election was also good downticket, picking up seats in the House, Senate and many state legislatures. Despite this, Democrats still won’t control the House even though they got one million more votes than Republicans! You see Republicans won control over many state legislatures in 2010. This meant that when the census figures were released and Congressional districts were redrawn, Republicans redrew them to favour themselves. This form of anti-democracy gerrymandering is performed  by both parties, for Democrats it was just unfortunate that it happened right after Republicans swept to power. As well as success for offices, liberal ideas also succeeded at the ballot box.

In Massachusetts and Connecticut voters decided to legalise medical Marijuana, whilst Arkansas rejected a similar ballot measure. Although Oregon rejected outright legalisation of Marijuana, both Colorado and Washington legalised it for recreational use! Gay rights having failed in 33 of 34 ballot initiatives prior to November, including in North Carolina in February, actually saw serious successes for the first time! In November the three states that had legalisation of gay marriage on the ballot, gay rights won! This meant that Maine, Maryland and Washington became the first states to legalise gay marriage by popular vote. In Minnesota voters rejected adding a constitutional amendment to the state constitution that would ban gay marriage. This will embolden Democrats in Minnesota who take control of the both houses in the state legislature in 2013 to try and legalise gay marriage.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, 2012 wasn’t a completely blue whitewash, Wisconsin spelled out a big defeat for them. When the republican state legislature and governor, Scott Walker, passed anti-union legislation in the state it infuriated Democrats and Unions. A similar law had been passed by Republicans in Ohio but was repealed when Ohio voters forced a referendum on the issue. Unfortunately for Wisconsinites this option was not available to them, so instead they tried to recall the governor. They got enough signatures on the ballot, but despite all their best efforts, Walker survived the recall election.

Despite that rather major setback, Democrats can certainly say that 2012 was a good year for them and their beliefs. 

Obama hugging Michele after winning the race
source: Obama's facebook page