Some quick wrap up on Election 2005:

Virginia: Kaine beat Kilgore by an almost identical margin (52/46) to Warner's 2001 victory over  Mark Earley (52/47). Kaine picked up roughly 35,000 more raw votes than Warner did in 2001 while Kilgore only added around 20,000 to Earley's 2001 total. Voter turnout this year was reported at 43%. 

A few points of interest comparing county level returns from 2005 to 2001:

Fairfax & Arlington Counties: Kaine ran almost six points better than Warner did four years ago (60.2 to 54.5) in Fairfax County. Fairfax is the largest county in the state by an order of magnitude (13.76% of all votes cast yesterday came from Fairfax), so Kaine netted a 60,000+ vote lead in Fairfax alone, more than double what Warner got in '01. Kaine also ran 6 points better than Warner in neighboring Arlington County - and Warner is from Alexandria.

Loudoun & Prince William Counties: Kaine ran much stronger in the Northern Virginia ex-urbs than Warner. Kaine beat Kilgore in Loudoun 51.3% to 45.7%. Four years ago Warner lost Loudoun to Earley by seven and half-points. Same in Prince William, where Kaine managed to post a 1.8% win yesterday. Warner lost it by five and a half in 2001.

New Jersey: Corzine won by 9.5%, outperforming most of the polls in this race. According to an AP-Ipsos exit survey:

Corzine captured the New Jersey governor's race by expanding on his party's traditional edge among women and minorities, but also by blunting Republican Doug Forrester's drumbeat on property tax reduction, according to a voter survey conducted Tuesday.

Corzine voters said the economy and jobs were most important to them. People who cited property taxes as the most important issue favored Forrester. The Republican scored even more strongly among voters who said corruption was a factor in their vote, according to the survey by The Associated Press and its polling partner, Ipsos.

Forrester wasn't an ideal candidate and his pro-choice, pro-stem cell positions siphoned off valuable support from the conservative base. It also looks like all the mud slinging at the end of the race ended up being a plus for Corzine because it drove up the negatives of both candidates and drowned out any real discussion of the two issues which Forrester had a chance of gaining traction: propterty taxes and corruption.

Now to the "what does it all mean?" segment:

Ron Brownstein says last night lifts the hopes of Democrats, though he does make note that Dems won both these races in 2001 when Bush's approval rating was at it's post-9/11 peak.

John Podhoretz says:  "To sum up: Incumbent party victories in two states and one city. A Republican state rejected Democratic initiatives. A Democratic state rejected Republican initiatives. Don't let the Democratic spin doctors fool you. Election Day 2005 has nothing to tell us about where the electorate is going in the wake of Bush's terrible year."

Larry Sabato says:  "There's no way to spin this than anything other than a major defeat for Republicans and for President Bush. This [Virginia] is a red state, he came in on Election Eve and he had no discernible effect. If anything, he may have cost Kilgore some votes."

Stuart Rothenberg says: ``Given the state of things, the Republicans really needed to win one of these races. Because of the way the cycle is setting up, the way the momentum is right now, it's not good enough for the Republicans to say, `These were Democratic seats, we put up a good fight and still lost.' ``

Charlie Cook says: "Republicans on Capitol Hill are so scared already.  This is just going to make them more fearful that 2006 could be a disaster."

Rahm Emanuel says: `This confirms that our voters are extremely mobilized, agitated and activated; theirs are despondent. Right now, I've got about 15 [potential candidates] I'm recruiting; this makes the sale a lot easier."

Ken Mehlman says: "From the beginning, we have viewed these as not national but state races. History is consistent with that, and the results tonight are consistent with that."

I think it's unwise to try and assign these races any value in analyzing what may or may not happen in 2006. Certainly the topline vitals (direction of country, Congressional approval, generic vote, etc) are not generally favorable for Republicans right now.  But a year is a very long time and the political landscape can - and probably will - change dramatically over the next twelve months.