YESTERDAY’S ELECTION MAY SIGNAL A SWING TO THE CENTER

ELECTION highlights from an article by LA Times’ Paul West | http://lat.ms/tE4sMb

November 8, 2011, 10:50 p.m. - Reporting from Washington

• Ohio voters overturned a controversial law that would have weakened public employee unions
• Mississippians rejected an antiabortion "personhood" initiative in elections Tuesday that suggested at least a pause in the strong conservative Republican trend that swept Democrats from office in 2010.
• One year after getting shellacked by Republicans, President Obama, whose poll ratings continue to languish, maintained a low profile.
• In the Phoenix suburbs, state Senate President Russell Pearce, the architect of Arizona's contentious immigration law, was defeated by fellow Republican Jerry Lewis in the state's first recall election of a sitting lawmaker.
• In Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, won reelection over Republican David Williams, the state Senate president, and third-party candidate Gatewood Galbraith.
• In Mississippi, voters chose another Republican, Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Haley Barbour. Democratic nominee Johnny DuPree had sought to become the state's first African American governor of the modern era.
• At the same time, Mississippi voters firmly rejected Initiative 26, which would have effectively defined birth control methods like IUDs and the morning-after pill as murder.
• In another setback for newly emboldened Republican lawmakers, Maine voters repealed a law passed this year by the Republican Legislature that would have ended the tradition of same-day registration.
• And in Iowa, Democrats won a special election for a vacant state Senate seat to keep Republicans from gaining control of the entire government in Des Moines.

Even as strategists warned against reading too much into the results of an off-year election, the 2011 contests were enough of a mixed bag to provide talking points for partisans on both sides.

Read the whole article: Elections nationwide suggest pause in Republican trend - latimes.com http://lat.ms/tE4sMb