At the start of the year, at the trough of Republican gloom, picking up a Democratic governorship this November would have seemed like a big win. Now that Republican candidates have been leading for months, though, winning only one of the two races would not generate much momentum for the party. It wouldn’t do much to change Democratic congressional calculations about health-care reform or potential Republican congressional candidates’ calculations about running. A Republican win in Virginia would be widely attributed to Creigh Deeds’s weakness as a candidate. To the extent that people read a national trend into the outcome, they’ll say that the Democrats are giving back some recent gains–something they couldn’t say if Democrats lost New Jersey. All of which suggests to me that the pivotal race right now is not in Virginia but in New Jersey.

Perhaps needless to say, if Republicans go 0 for 2 they will be right back at their low point.