Election day 2013, St. Paul and elsewhere

Chue Vue, courtesy photo.

Here in St. Paul, we re-elected Mayor Chris Coleman for a third term, and we elected incumbents Jean O'Connell and John Brodrick along with newcomer Chue Vue to the school board. The Christian Science Monitor provides a comprehensive roundup of election news around the nation:

His pitch bipartisan and inclusive, Republican Gov. Chris Christie cruised to re-election Tuesday in Democratic-leaning New Jersey amid talk of a possible 2016 presidential run. Democrat Terry McAuliffe narrowly won the Virginia governor's race, leading what Democrats hoped would be their first sweep of statewide offices in decades.
 
New Yorkers chose Bill de Blasio as mayor, electing the first Democrat since 1989.

In other, widely scattered off-year balloting, Houston rejected a plan to turn Astrodome into a convention hall, likely dooming it to demolition, while Colorado agreed to tax marijuana at 25 percent. Alabama Republicans chose the establishment-backed Bradley Byrne over a tea party-supported rival in a special congressional runoff election in the conservative state.

Taken together, the results in individual states and cities yielded no broad judgments on how the American public feels about today's two biggest national political debates — government spending and health care — which are more likely to shape next fall's midterm elections.
Even so, Tuesday's voting had local impact, and it mattered in ways big and small.

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The outcomes of both governors' races and the special Alabama GOP congressional primary signaled that, in the midst of a deep division within the Republican Party, pragmatism won out over ideology.
In Virginia, McAuliffe turned back a late-game push by state Attorney General Ken Cuccinnelli, a Republican. Both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton made appearances for McAuliffe in the final weeks, and so did President Barack Obama over the weekend. The Democrat also dramatically outspent his GOP rival in TV ads in the final weeks.

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