Advocates for labor, women’s and immigration rights are celebrating a number of key victories in Tuesday’s state elections. In Ohio, voters defeated Republican Gov. John Kasich’s controversial limits on the collective bargaining rights of state employees. In Arizona, Russell Pearce, the architect of the state’s controversial anti-immigration law has lost his state senate seat in an unprecedented recall vote. Meanwhile, in Maine, voters have defeated a Republican measure that barred same-day voter registration on election day. For analysis, we’re joined from Ohio by reporter John Nichols of The Nation magazine. “There were many political consultants, political insiders, who said, 'Oh, don't pick this fight.’ You’ll note that President Obama and the Washington Democrats stayed clear of this battle in Ohio,” Nichols says. “But in Ohio on the ground, this grassroots movement, which put literally thousands and thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, at the doors, turned back a national conservative agenda. That’s a big deal.”
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