a) "the base stayed home" or
b) Republicans voted Dem.
Even now, they don't know. I PERSONALLY know "conservatives" who didn't vote for Blackwell or DeWine because they weren't "Christian" enough. (go figure).
The only piece of data that suggests anything is that the smoking issue in OH substantially out-polled ANY candidate at any level. So people turned out to vote against smoking.
OH is a tough state to use to gauge the national mood in 2006, given how many problems there were with the Taft administration.
The same thing happened here in Maryland with our republican ex-Governor Ehrlich. All these "conservatives" were saying "he's not conservative enough!" I'm thinking... your choices are a far-left pro-illegal socialist mayor of Baltimore, or the guy we have now, who might not be totally conservative, but who does at least provide us a balance against the Democrat controlled state legislature. For me? The choice was easy.
These people who stayed at home are like spoiled children. Elections are NEVER about getting what you want. They are about choosing the candidate who is going to screw you the least.
It looks to me that conservative turnout wasn’t the reason Santorum lost. It looks to me that the only midterm that conservatives skipped in recent years was Hafer in 1990.
2006: Casey Jr. 2.36 million, Santorum 1.66 million
2006: Rendell 2.43 million, Swann 1.60 million
2002: Rendell 1.91 million, Fisher 1.59 million
1998: Ridge 1.74 million, Itkin 0.94 million
1998: Specter 1.81 million, Lloyd 1.03 million
1994: Ridge 1.63 million, Singel 1.43 million
1994: Santorum 1.74 million, Wofford 1.65 million
1990: Casey Sr. 2.07 million, Hafer 0.99 million
1986: Casey Sr. 1.71 million, Scranton 1.63 million
1986: Specter 1.91 million, Edgar 1.45 million