Dems Dent GOP In Off-Year Vote

Win Gov. Races In NJ, Va., & 4 Mayor's Races; GOP Wins NYC, San Diego

(CBS/AP)  Democrats cleaned up big in off-year elections from New Jersey to California, sinking the candidate who embraced President Bush in the final days of the Virginia governor's campaign. They also turned back GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to limit the power of California's Democratic leaders.

Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine easily won the New Jersey governor's seat after an expensive mudslinging campaign, trouncing Republican Doug Forrester by 10 percentage points. Polls in the last week had forecast a much closer race.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine won a solid victory in GOP-leaning Virginia, beating Republican Jerry Kilgore by more than 5 percentage points. Democrats crowed that Bush's election-eve rally for the former state attorney general only spurred more Kaine supporters to the polls.

In California, Schwarzenegger failed in his push to rein in the Democrat-controlled Assembly. All four of his ballot measures flopped: attempts to limit the political use of union dues; cap state spending, remove legislators' redistricting powers, and make teachers work five years instead of two to pass probation.

Elsewhere, Texas voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage, Maine voted to preserve the state's new gay-rights law, and GOP Mayor Michael Bloomberg easily clinched a second term in heavily Democratic New York.

Democrats said the results were the first steps toward bigger victories next year - when control of Congress and 36 governors seats are at stake - and for the 2008 presidential race.

"I believe national Republican politics ... really had an effect in Virginia and California," said Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean. Voters "don't like the abuse of power, they don't like the culture of corruption. They want the nation to go in a different way."

Republicans warned against reading too much into two governorships that started the day in Democratic hands and ended that way. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner was barred by law from seeking a second term, and New Jersey acting Gov. Richard J. Codey opted not to run.

"It's not some type of trend," said GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, noting that both seats were won by Democrats in 2001 when President Bush's popularity was high. Still, he acknowledged the defeats - and said they could help rally the GOP base next year. "I don't think anybody will be complacent now."

Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman praised the campaigns of losing GOP gubernatorial candidates Kilgore and Forrester and was buoyed by the Bloomberg victory in New York, even though the incumbent mayor had been widely expected to win.

"Bloomberg's achievement," said Mehlman, "is particularly impressive when one takes into account that there are 5 Democrats for every 1 Republican in the city. Tonight's victory is testimony to the fact that voters are more concerned with the candidate and the platform that best represents their views."

Both governors' races were marked by record-breaking spending – a total of over $70 million in New Jersey - and vicious personal attacks.

In Virginia, Kilgore's campaign ran an ad claiming Kaine, a death penalty opponent, would have refused to execute Adolf Hitler, while Forrester quoted Corzine's ex-wife as saying he had let down his family and he would let down New Jersey.

In his concession speech, Forrester urged Corzine to bring the state together. Corzine acknowledged that the campaign had been painful.

"Sometimes, innocent bystanders are hurt in politics. ... Some seen, some unseen. And I hope we can push beyond this," he said, appearing with his three grown children.