The G.O.P.'s Stately Mansions

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Don't dis Mr. Burns. During a hard-fought Indiana gubernatorial race that saw opponents hurling media brickbats at each other to the tune of $31 million, a state spending record, incumbent Democrat Joe Kernan joked that challenger Mitch Daniels, head of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush, resembled The Simpsons' distasteful plutocrat. Hoosier voters, however, responded to Daniels' fiscal savvy--and to the coattails of his former boss--making him the state's first Republican Governor since 1989.

That, in turn, helped the G.O.P., which owned a 28-22 gubernatorial majority going into the election, maintain its margin. Five states (Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah and Vermont) went Republican, and five went Democratic (Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina and West Virginia), with Washington's race too close to call. But in the most closely watched and heavily bankrolled races, the G.O.P. prevailed. In Missouri Matt Blunt, the son of four-term Congressman Roy Blunt, beat state auditor Claire McCaskill; the two candidates spent a combined $7.3 million, also a likely state record. And in Utah a scion of one of the state's richest families, Jon Huntsman Jr., handily trounced Scott Matheson Jr. Matheson was supposed to be the best Democratic gubernatorial hope since his father left the job in 1984. Like many in his party, he will have to go back to the drawing board. --By David Van Biema