Democrats lost big in the New Jersey governor's race and barely won the Virginia gubernatorial contest, but that hasn't stopped them from claiming the 2013 election was a major victory for them.
And they’re taking some very big leaps to do so.
In an e-mail sent to subscribers this weekend, Democratic National Committee Communications Director Mo Elleithee wrote that “we defied some pretty big trends in this past election.”
Elleithee then lists four “big” trends that were broken; let’s take a look at each one separately.
1. “For the first time in almost four decades, the winning candidate in Virginia's governor's race is from the same party as the president.”
And? How is that a victory for the Democratic party?
Under both Republican and Democratic presidents, the state has elected a governor of the opposite party. With the host of issues that Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli was faced with (the government shutdown, current Gov. Bob McDonnell and weak fundraising), the fact that Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe won is not surprising.
