I wouldn't say it's completely local. If it was, Brownback would be losing by double digits. But yeah, it's definitely different from 2010, where most voters seemingly didn't even care about candidate quality and just voted straight R down to dog catcher to "send a message to Obama". One of the states even elected a criminal as governor because he had the "correct" letter after his name.
It's not a line, it's a fact.
Roll your eyes all you want, but it doesn't change facts.
