Gerald F. Seib reports on politics. His column and posts appear on the Capital Journal blog.

It’s a grumpy nation. We probably all knew that, but Tuesday’s election results underscore the point.

It wasn’t a good election for Democrats, of course. They lost the two biggest races — the contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia — the first a blue state they should own, and the second now a swing state Democrats liked to think they had turned in the last two elections.

But Democrats can argue they won in the race that is most relevant to what is going on in Washington, the special House election in New York’s 23rd congressional district. That represents a victory in a traditionally Republican district, and a sign that GOP conservatives probably overplayed their hand by forcing a liberal Republican out of the race.

The broader lesson in all this, however, may simply be the signs of grumpiness all around. In each case, independent voters appear to have swung against the party holding the seat. And in New York, a wildly overfunded and universally known incumbent