As Virginia and New Jersey go ...?

You've heard the conventional wisdom echoed over and over by pundits ... that in the year following a presidential election, the off-year gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey offer a key bellwether for the political state of the two major parties nationwide, and that they foreshadow the results of the following year's Congressional midterm elections. In recent weeks the Republican New Jersey candidate for Governor, Chris Christie, and the Republican candidate for Governor in Virginia, Bob McConnell, have both enjoyed leads in the polls.

Unfortunately, this conventional wisdom hasn't exactly held up in recent years. Certainly it's true that in 2005 the Democrats enjoyed easy victories in both states just a year before the Democrats took back both house of Congress. But 2001 did not fit the pattern, as Democrats won both races at a time when President Bush's approval ratings were at record highs, and a year before the President's party gained seats in the 2002 midterm elections. Nor was 1997 really a gauge of anything significant: Republicans won both governor's races that year, but the subsequent 1998 midterm elections proved to be the first in 64 years where the president's party failed to gain congressional seats in a midterm election.

Thus if Christie and McConnell hold on to their respective leads, it might signal a revival of Republican party hopes and foreshadow a positive Republican showing in the 2010 midterm elections.

Or it might not.