The rise of Chris Christie and other lessons from Tuesday's results

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Here’s what we learned from Tuesday’s elections:

1. Chris Christie is formidable and now one of the leading Republican presidential candidates

The New Jersey governor didn’t just win re-election easily, but built the kind of broad, diverse coalition Mitt Romney could not in 2012. Christie, according to exit polls, won 31 percent of self-described Democrats, 48 percent of Latinos and 20 percent of blacks. His win will no doubt start speculation about Christie being the kind of “electable” candidate the GOP needs in 2016, and the governor himself is already making that case.

To be sure, Christie was facing New Jersey State Sen. Barbara Buono, a lightly-regarded Democrat, not Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or another more formidable opponent. He will be hard-pressed to win that many minority voters in a national election against a strong Democrat. But Christie showed that a conservative Republican could win in a blue state like New Jersey, which should worry Democrats.

2. In Virginia, embracing “Obamacare” was not political suicide

Republican Ken Cuccinelli was part of a group of GOP state attorneys general who challenged the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, opposed it throughout his campaign for governor and said if elected, he would stop any attempt to expand Virginia’s Medicaid program through the law.  Democrat Terry McAuliffe ran as a supporter of the law who said he wanted to get federal dollars through ACA to cover more of the state’s poor.

In the first race in which the implementation of the health care law and the Medicaid funding was a major issue, the Democratic candidate won. McAuliffe’s victory was probably more due to Virginia’s increasingly blue tilt and the unpopularity of Cuccinelli, but the campaign in Virginia showed a Democrat could embrace Obamacare in a key race in a swing state and still win.

3. Neither party made huge gains

Bill De Blasio was the most unabashedly liberal person to win a New York mayoral race in a generation, but Chris Christie, a conservative, won easily in nearby New Jersey, a traditionally-Democratic state. McAuliffe narrowly defeated Cuccinelli in Virginia, a state that is closely divided between Republicans and Democrats.

But it’s not clear the races illustrated any broader trends about upcoming elections in 2014 or 2016. Some analysts say the victory of Christie, who has been embraced by the GOP establishment, and the defeat of Cuccinelli, who is close to the Tea Party, shows that the GOP must reject its most conservative elements if it wants to win 2016. But two candidates do not make a trend, and Christie had the advantage of running as an incumbent.