On the same day, voters in Portland, Maine, upheld a law guaranteeing marriage equality — a much more progressive step — by a 74-26 margin.

He's right, but the New Jersey result can't be comforting, especially if Patrick and advisers are nursing hopes of winning with less than a majority in a three-candidate race. In the closing weeks of the campaign, many analysts suggested that unpopular Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine could win with far less than 50 percent of the vote, thanks to independent candidate Chris Daggett pulling anti-Corzine votes away from Republican nominee Chris Christie.

In the end Daggett, who had polled as high as 20 percent, got only 5.8 percent of the vote, and Christie unseated Corzine, 48.8 percent to 44.5 percent. My hunch is that anti-Corzine independents and Republicans broke for Christie in the final days of the campaign, leaving Daggett with Democrats who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Corzine but would never vote for a Republican.

So I'm updating my prediction from July: Patrick needs to get very close to 50 percent next fall in order to be re-elected. Gambling that the Republican nominee (presumably Charlie Baker) and independent Tim Cahill will split the anti-incumbent vote and allow Patrick to glide in with, say, 44.5 percent, would be a poor strategy for the governor's campaign.  

Cross-posted at CW Unbound.

Yesterday's repeal of a law allowing same-sex marriage in Maine was largely an urban vs. rural affair. According to almost-complete results on the Bangor Daily News website, the "No on 1" forces easily prevailed in six of the state's eight biggest communities. The biggest cities won by the campaign against gay marriage were Lewiston and Auburn, economically depressed blue-collar areas far from the coast. The "Yes on 1" side swept smaller towns, especially in the northern half of the state. Presque Isle, where voters went against gay marriage by 2-to-1, is in Aroostook County, which forms the state's northern border with Canada.

Here are the winning percentages in the 10 biggest communities (see below)

1. Portland: No, 74%
2. Lewiston: Yes, 59%
3. Bangor: No, 54%
4. South Portland: No, 64%
5. Auburn: Yes, 54%
6. Saco: No, 54%
7. Westbrook: No, 55%
8. Waterville: No, 54%
9. Presque Isle: Yes, 67%
10. Brewer: Yes, 58%

UPDATE: More evidence of an urban/rural divide: gay candidates prospered yesterday in Chapel Hill, Detroit, and Houston. And Brockton, Mass.

[Republican Bob] McDonnell’s victory in Loudoun and in neighboring Prince William County
will come as a surprise to many armchair pundits, who thought that all
of Northern Virginia had became solidly blue. Many die-hard Democrats
will blame Creigh Deeds’s lifeless campaign and the political
environment.

But the truth is that Northern Virginia is often taken for granted as a
powerful Democratic bloc. To be sure, Fairfax County has become solidly
blue, but Loudoun and Prince William counties are more accurately full
of independents who just happen to be supporting Democrats recently.

I'm fascinated by the process by which a solid Republican county becomes solidly Democratic (and vice versa), and I suspect that Northern Virginia may yet become as reliably blue as Massachusetts. But these trends almost never play out as a purely linear plotline.

“It’s the lonely machine,’’ said Loretta Paulding, the election warden
in charge of Ward 1, Precinct 15, for the last 15 years. “But I do have
to keep an eye on it. And at the end of the night, I still have to
tally up zero, zero, zero.’’

Lest the above examples suggest that the APA has quaint, small-town taste, I should point out that other winners this year include Chicago's Lincoln Park and New Orleans's Faubourg Marigny neighborhood.

Last year, two Massachusetts sites were on the list. Downtown Salem was named a Great Neighborhood (its "eccentric street grid, and profusion of archetypal old houses belie a humming, mixed-use district"), and Boston's Washington Street grabbed a Great Street designation (for its South End section, not for embarrassingly empty Downtown Crossing).

In 2007, the first year of the awards, Northampton's Main Street was the only Bay State recipient.

Cross-posted at CW Unbound.

Democrats moving to states like Texas and Arizona
might make those states more competitive and give [the Democratic Party] more seats at
the state level. 

Of note to Massachusetts is that none of the 25 "big shrinkage" districts are here, though most of our industrial-state rivals in the North have at least one district that's lost tens of thousands of people so far this decade. Illinois has five, and Michigan and Pennsylvania have four each.

Maybe we'll catch a break and not lose another seat in 2020?

If people form attachments to computer companies the same way they form attachments to political parties, this could mean a whole new generation of Mac loyalists in the Pine Tree State.

I'm not particularly alarmed, but I've been under Apple's spell since the early '90s. Others, however, may be upset that Maine public schools are interfering with parents' rights to guide their children toward one true operating system.