Special elections

Tuesday’s special congressional elections in Nevada and New York were much more than referendums on President Obama. They were snapshots of voter enthusiasm. That should worry Democrats heading into campaign 2012.

In both states, Republicans were far more motivated.

During early voting in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District race, 53.5 percent of more than 75,000 ballots were cast by Republicans, even though they comprise only 43 percent of the district’s nearly 400,000 registered voters. Democrats cast 34.1 percent of the early ballots, slightly less than their 35 percent share of registered voters. Given those disparities, former GOP state Sen. Mark Amodei was a huge favorite to take the seat vacated by Dean Heller, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate earlier this year.

New York’s 9th Congressional District has a similarly lopsided voter-registration disparity — favoring Democrats. But heading into Tuesday’s election to replace the disgraced Anthony Weiner, some polls showed Republican Bob Turner leading Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin.

Less than four months ago, another New York special congressional election was seen as a bellwether for the 2012 campaign. In that race, Democrat Kathy Hochul won a Republican-leaning district, getting a boost from incendiary ads that depicted House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., dumping an elderly woman in a wheelchair off a cliff.

Voters’ emotions are fleeting — especially in this economy. Four months, let alone a year, is an eternity in politics. And neither one of these races involved an incumbent, a dynamic that surely will hurt office holders of both parties.

But if nothing else, Tuesday’s votes show that Democrats could be hard-pressed to duplicate the kind of turnout that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. At this point, Democratic voters simply have precious few reasons to be excited about their party’s prospects — to say nothing of their failed policies.