Voter Turnout

Winning a seat on the Mount Holly Township Council is usually a cinch - there hasn't been a contested race in six years. But that's changed as three candidates are competing to oust longtime incumbents Mayor Jules Thiessen and Brooke Tidswell in Tuesday's nonpartisan election. Though the municipal race features perennial issues of taxes, economic development, and crime, the challengers are also talking about increasing civic involvement in this community of more than 10,000.

Talk about political climate change. A year after President Obama won the White House, Republican victories Tuesday in New Jersey and Virginia carried warnings for Democrats heading into the 2010 midterm elections, as voters unsettled by the economy struck at the status quo in both states. Neither election for governor shaped up as a direct referendum on Obama's presidency, but exit polls showed that the independent voters instrumental in returning Democrats to power in the 2006 and 2008 elections swung to the Republicans on Tuesday.

No big surprises in Delaware County, where Republicans held control of the county offices but Democrats gained local control in some new areas. Republicans appeared poised to hold control of the Delaware County Council last night, defeating the Democratic candidates by ratios of roughly 5-3 for two seats, with more than 85 percent of the vote counted. Republicans also led nearly 5-3 in the race for Common Pleas Court judge. John J. "Jack" Whelan, 49, a lawyer from Ridley, won reelection to the council for a second four-year term.

From 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. today, voters across Pennsylvania will be going to the polls to produce a new justice of the state Supreme Court, a new prosecutor in Bucks County, and the first new Philadelphia district attorney in 19 years. Scores of county, municipal, and school board posts are also in contention. Topping the ballot statewide, Democrat Jack Panella, 54, and Republican Joan Orie Melvin, 53, are vying for one open seat on Pennsylvania's highest court. In Philadelphia, Democrat Seth Williams, 42, and Republican Michael Untermeyer, 58, are competing to succeed District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, who is stepping down after nearly two decades in the job. In Bucks County, Republican David W. Heckler, 62, is battling Democrat Chris Asplen, 45, to replace District Attorney Michelle Henry, who was appointed two years ago but decided not to seek a full four-year term.

In their only formal debate, the two candidates for Pennsylvania Supreme Court clashed yesterday over cash contributions, the role of the court in politics, and the extent to which a judicial review board should have intervened in an upstate corruption case. For a judicial debate - normally dry stuff - it was pretty entertaining. Twelve days before the election, Republican Joan Orie Melvin was on the offensive as she and Democrat Jack Panella tangled for an hour - pointedly but politely - at Temple University's Beasley School of Law. The pair, who sat side by side, have often shared a dais.

Riding a wave of Democratic support and a huge turnout in New Jersey, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg cruised to reelection yesterday. The outcome was never in doubt despite some voter apathy toward Lautenberg's candidacy and a respected Republican challenger in Dick Zimmer, a former U.S. representative. The race was called almost as soon as the polls closed at 8 p.m., and Lautenberg concluded his acceptance speech before 10. "We have a victory tonight that's so sweet," he said in New Brunswick.

To find Sen. Barack Obama's strategic road map for the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, just pick up a copy of Rand McNally and trace the Blue Route from the southern fringes of Philadelphia and up the Northeast Extension to Allentown. The highways roughly form the western border of an eight-county region filled with the kinds of voters who have made Pennsylvania a swing state in general elections and who have formed the demographic backbone of Obama's 29 primary and caucus victories.

Traditional Democratic constituencies - women, African Americans, Latinos and blue-collar workers - joined with energized newcomers Tuesday to fuel a New Jersey voter turnout of 35 percent, a startling increase from recent presidential primaries. Of New Jersey's 4.8 million eligible voters, 1.7 million cast ballots, with 1.1 million voting in the Democratic primary. Burlington County, which New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won on her way to taking a majority of the state's delegates, had 51,700 registered Democrats when polls opened.

At the close of Michael Nutter's campaign, the now-mayor-elect was urging people to vote, not just for him but to send a message to President Bush and to help elect Democrats as judges. Nutter's theme: It's not over. Most voters weren't listening. Seven of 10 registered voters in the city skipped a trip to the polls yesterday, treating the mayor's race as an issue settled in the May Democratic primary when Nutter bested four rivals. With more than 96 percent of the divisions reporting late last night, only 28.7 percent of the city's registered voters cast ballots.