If we are going to talk about the national implications of the race, it is important to note that Obama only won this district by 1.5 points in 2012. Sink lost by about 2 points. This implies that the national generic vote would be about even, which is where it was in 2012. How does this tell us anything new? If it tells us that the Democrats won't be retaking the house, then I would say that everyone already knew that. Yes, Democrats need to win this sort of seat to win the house but that is not going to happen in 2014. Whether or not the Democrats hold on to the Senate is the real question this election cycle and this race doesn't give us an answer to that question.
That assumes the candidate quality was about equal. If Sink were a superior candidate vis a vis Jolly, as I assumed, then one comes to a different conclusion. It is interesting Sink did so much better with the absentees than she did with the election day voters. That suggests the Dems were far superior on the ground than the Pubs were, which is another possible factor in the mix to consider. It is rather hard to believe that higher scale SES voters tend to vote on election day rather than before, when one's intuition is precisely the opposite, and I think in 2012 Obama did in fact do a bit better with the election day voters than the absentees. Another explanation is that Sink "sank" at the end of the race, and if that if most voters were election day voters, rather than absentees, than the election would have been more of a Jolly blow out.
The biggest factor working against Democrats was that this is a special election. Although the ad attack from both sides might have tempered that somewhat, there was still a drop off from 2010 turnout, which usually hurts the Democrats. I think that counterbalances any advantage the Dems may have had due to candidate quality or a better turnout operation. Also, some of the locals, like Sjoyce, feel Sink wasn't the best candidate but I can't comment on that. Overall, if we can read anything into the national environment from this race, it is that the generic vote is probably tied (which is also consistent with polling), which means the pubs hold the house. They probably win the Senate too, but barely. I doubt they win in NH, IA, CO or MI. NC and LA should be interesting and AK is just a wildcard. Of course it is still March......
