LANSING – Democrats had talked big in the week leading up to Election Day about how a superior turnout effort, an energized Democratic base and voter anger with Republican Governor Rick Snyder would propel Democrat Mark Schauer to the governorship, but none of those predictions came to pass as voters handed Snyder a second term and strengthened GOP control of the Legislature.

The only bright spot for Democrats was the victory of U.S. Rep. Gary Peters in the U.S. Senate race over Republican Terri Land, and considering the thumping his party took elsewhere, it was remarkable that he crushed Land in a landslide of 55 percent to 41 percent.

Still, that was tempered with the news that Republicans had captured control of the U.S. Senate.

It was not the 58 percent to 39 percent rout of 2010, but Snyder’s 51 percent to 47 percent victory over Schauer was still a bit stronger than anticipated.

The bigger surprise was that Democrats completely flopped in the key legislative races.

House Democrats, who had appeared to surge in the final weeks of the campaign to the point where Republicans had grown concerned about losing seats, failed to flip a single Republican seat while Republicans ousted two Democratic incumbents and flipped two open Democratic seats to their side.

In the Senate, where Democrats thought they would at minimum flip the two seats needed to end the Republican supermajority, Republicans instead swept all the key races to gain a seat for a 27-11 majority.

“The progress we have seen in the last four years is outpacing the rest of the nation, and we owe it to the leadership we have in place today,” Republican Party Chair Bobby Schostak said in a statement. “Governor Snyder, Lieutenant Governor Calley, and the rest of our Comeback Team will continue moving this state forward over the next four years, and we’ll look back on today and realize we made future generations brighter with this Governor’s re-election.”

For Democrats, it was a continuation of their mid-term jinx and conversely of Republican mastery. Of the seven mid-terms since 1990, only 2006 has seen the Democrats fare well in legislative races.

Democrats insisted 2014 would be no repeat of 2010 in terms of their base turning out – and they were wrong. Voter turnout appeared likely to be close to 2010’s 3.28 million and maybe worse. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, there were just 3.19 million votes in the governor’s race.

As expected, Republicans won the other statewide offices with Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette defeating their challengers by comfortable margins.

It appeared the existing 5-2 majority of Republican-nominated justices on the Supreme Court would hold with Democratic attorney Richard Bernstein winning one of the full terms and Justice Brian Zahra, a Republican nominee, winning the other. Justice David Viviano, a Republican nominee, easily won the partial term.

As anticipated, Republicans won all the contested races for the U.S. House.

Republican consultant Greg McNeilly said given the ticket-splitting that occurred with voters electing Peters and some Democratic education board candidates, it was a resounding victory for Snyder and Republican legislative candidates.

“There’s an obvious endorsement of what’s happening at the state Capitol,” he said. “Voters want more of it.”

McNeilly said it is the first time since 1924 that a Republican governor won re-election and the Republican candidates for attorney general and secretary of state won.

As to how Land could get so thoroughly crushed even as voters elected Republicans elsewhere on the ballot, McNeilly did not mince words.

“Republicans had a shitty candidate, to be blunt,” he said. “Candidate quality makes a difference here.”

Democratic political consultant T.J. Bucholz said the surprising part about the night’s results is that Schauer ran respectably and Peters won big, but Democrats got manhandled in the Legislature.

“Obviously it’s a disappointing nights for Democrats, especially when you look at the House races,” he said. “If you say Peters wins in a landslide and Schauer keeps it close, there should have been some kind of coattails for House members for sure, and it just didn’t happen.”

Bucholz said Democrats will have to completely re-evaluate their messaging in mid-terms, given the struggles the party continues to have. As much as Democrats have succeeded in presidential election years, “It just does not seem to translate in these mid-term, off-cycle years.”

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