What was supposed to be a fairly easy victory for Terry McAuliffe over Ken Cuccinelli for the gubernatorial race in Virginia turned into a much closer than expected win for Terry McAuliffe.  Results aren’t final yet, but the most recent results show McAulliffe at 48.0% to Cuccinelli’s 45.5% with Libertarian Robert Sarvis claiming 6.6% of the vote.

It’s been all Obamacare all the time in Virginia the past few weeks.  Cuccinelli’s been heavily touting the website troubles and reports of individuals losing their insurance as ammunition against McAuliffe.  Despite McAuliffe’s win, it certainly looks like Obamacare hurt him some if the polls leading up to the election were accurate.

If Democrats were smart, they’d be doing some heavy internal polling of Sarvis voters to determine who they would have voted for if Sarvis wasn’t in the race.  Generally, a Libertarian candidate would be expected to pull votes away from the Republican candidate, but Cuccinelli’s a special kind of crazy that I don’t think would resonate with Libertarians.  It would be really bad news for Democrats if this election showed people leaning Democrat voting Libertarian.  Obamacare is a Libertarian’s second worse nightmare next to sharing one’s toys in a sandbox so this could actually be the case.

In other Virginia election news, Democrat Ralph Northam beat uber crazy E.W. Jackson to become Lieutenant Governor.  This is important because the Virginia Senate is currently even and the Lieutenant Governor casts the deciding vote in ties.  The Attorney General job looks like it’s going to Republican Mark Obenshain who is currently in the lead by less than 300 votes out of over two million cast, so no clean sweep in Virginia for the Democrats.

Around the nation, complete dick and likely Republican Presidential candidate Chris Christie won handily in New Jersey, the only state where being a dick is considered a distinguished mark of character.  The most progressive candidate on the ballot anywhere, Bill de Blasio won in a landslide and will be the first Democratic mayor of New York in 20 years.  Tea Party favorite Dean Young lost to Republican (and former Democrat) Bradley Byrne for Alabama’s 1st Congressional District.  Perhaps some sort of sanity is returning to the Republican party.  And finally, Generic Democratic Candidate A beat Generic Democratic Candidate B for Mayor of Boston.