Prowling through the election returns in the governor races two weeks ago, I was surprised to find that Middlesex County, New Jersey, voted for Republican Christie over Democratic incumbent Corzine by a 48%-44% margin, almost exactly the same as Christie’s 49%-45% statewide margin. Middlesex County has been a Democratic county for as long as I have been studying election returns (going back to the 1960 election). In close elections it voted 58%-42% for John Kennedy in 1960, 46%-43% for Humphrey in 1968 (when he failed to carry New Jersey), 51%-47% for Carter in 1976, 46%-38% and 56%-32% for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, 60%-36% for Gore in 2000, 56%-43% for Kerry in 2004 and 60%-39% for Barack Obama in 2008.
Historically it was a white working class county, with old industrial cities like Perth Amboy and New Brunswick; its county Democratic leader was often the major Democratic power broker in state politics. You know the territory if you’ve ever driven through the intersection of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.
Yet it voted for Christie over Corzine.
*break*
Plus, down in Virginia, Fairfax County, which is 16% “Asian only” and which like Middlesex County voted 60%-39% for Barack Obama, voted 51%-49% for Republican Governor-elect Bob McDonnell. McDonnell campaigned heavily in Fairfax’s immigrant communities and clearly made some inroads there.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls.main/, Nationally, Asian voters went 62%-35% for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008, a number boosted by the fact that Obama carried Hawaii Asians, who make up 30% of the state’s electorate, by a 68%-30% margin. But the election results in Middlesex and Fairfax Counties for 2009, with economic issues playing a greater and different role than they did in 2008, suggest that Republicans can make significant gains among this growing segment of the electorate.
(Excerpt) Read - Washington Examiner: Are Asian Voters swinging Republican?
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