Back in 2007, as an energy saving measure, the United States extended the date on which daylight saving ends, from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. That means that US elections — held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November — will now sometimes happen under daylight saving, and this is one of those years: so today the east coast states, for example, instead of being eight hours ahead of eastern Australia, are still nine hours ahead (or, for pedants, 15 hours behind, since it’s still Tuesday there).
That makes life a bit easier for election-watchers here. Results from today’s mid-term elections started coming in shortly after 9am, Melbourne time, and the polls on the west coast close five hours after that, so the picture should be pretty complete by mid-afternoon. But of course there are bound to be a few close races that can’t be called until tomorrow or later, and it’s always possible that control of one or the other house could hang on one of them — as the Democrats’ senate takeover did in 2006.
But before looking at what’s become known so far, let’s recap what we’re looking for.
The Democrats, after two good election cycles, currently control the presidency, both houses of Congress, and a majority of governors and state legislatures. The presidency isn’t up for election again until 2012, but pretty much everything else is being voted on today.
In 2008 the Democrats won a 79-seat majority in the house of representatives, on a two-party vote of 54.6%. The whole house is up for re-election today, and the Republicans are strongly favored to overturn that majority and win control by a narrower but still comfortable margin. Nate Silver has a comprehensive hour-by-hour and seat-by-seat guide to how things might pan out.
Only a third of the Senate is elected every two years, which makes the Republicans’ task harder; six years ago was a good Republican year, so there are not as many Democrat-held seats on offer as there will be in 2012 and 2014. Even so, there is no doubt the GOP will make gains: North Dakota, Indiana and Arkansas are considered certain to fall, taking the current 59-41 Democrat majority to a best-case 56-44. A further nine seats are at some risk — roughly in order, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, West Virginia, Washington, California and Delaware.
Seven gains among those states would give the Republicans a majority; most observers regard that as out of reach, but they could get to 47 and might possibly make 49. Given that even a 59-41 majority has not always allowed Barack Obama to get his legislation approved (60 votes are needed to break a filibuster), 51-49 would clearly be a recipe for congressional gridlock.
Then there are the governors and state legislatures. Democrats currenly hold 26 state governorships to the Republicans’ 23, and also have the preponderance in state legislatures. There’s no doubt they will go backwards there as well: RealClearPolitics, for example, projects the Republicans to emerge with anywhere between 27 and 38 governors. And this is more important than in recent swing elections because 2010 is a census year, so the state legislatures in the coming term will have the responsibility of redrawing congressional boundaries — usually a partisan exercise.
So, what’s been happening so far? Silver has been liveblogging the results, and nothing so far has led him to change his overall expectations — he recently described it as “a fairly good night for the pollsters”. Eight house seats have been called as Republican gains (as of 9.20pm New York time), none of them being obvious surprises. The result will be in doubt for some time yet.
The Senate, on the other hand, is looking better for the Democrats than they might have feared. Indiana so far is their only definite loss (although North Dakota and Arkansas will certainly follow); West Virginia, thought to be at risk, has been called in their favor, and they are holding onto double-digit leads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (and, on very early numbers, in Colorado). Barring major upsets, the possibility a Republican majority has pretty much evaporated.
This is not going to be a good night for the Democrats, but it’s also not going to be a wipeout on the scale of 1994. Either way, as 1994 showed, it doesn’t tell us very much about Obama’s prospects in 2012: that will depend much more on what the economy does and how Republicans handle their increased power (including, of course, who they nominate against him) than on his legislative position.
Republicans are celebrating for now, but they have a fair way to go to recapture the trust that they forfeited during the Bush years.
What’s the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats? Very little. It seems to me, that for the last ???? or so terms anyway, the newly elected Administration has just taken over from where the last one left off! For instance, Obama has already sent more drones into Afghanistan & Pakistan than the Bush Administration did during its 8 years? What else has changed? The so-called Medicare Health bill etc hasn’t changed much at all. People’s houses are being ‘called in’ by the banks, and while the numbers of families living on the streets goes into the hundreds of thousands, those same houses are being vandalised! I find that extraordinary! Capitalism gone mad! Some of those homes are now only valued at $1, or $100 etc. This in the ‘world’s biggest democracy’, in American, ‘the land of the free’ and value god and religion blah blah blah!
The Republicans spin their lies about ‘big government’ and the threat of ‘socialism’ and ‘big government’ etc, and yet, they don’t seem to mind at least 43cents in every dollar going to the military – wars, ammunition, oil etc. Not a lot spent looking after the maimed and medically mad people who return though, or for their families while they’re away. I just give a big sigh and don’t even pay too much attention to the news coverage. Too depressing!
The only difference, is that the right wing Republicans, particularly the Tea Party crowd are based on revolting racist and fascist principles??Last night I watched ‘Outrage’ on SBS. It showed the absolute hypocrisy of mostly the Republicans re gay and lesbian people working on Capitol Hill etc. Apparently, the place is full of gays and lesbians, and yet so many of those Senators etc consistently took on the ‘hard nosed conservative line’ and consistently voted against any legislation that supported homosexual people – marriage, same sex adoption, homosexual people in the military etc. It’s a real eye opener!
I too was conned by Obama. I should’ve known better. The only reason he was ALLOWED to become president, was that the real ‘rulers’ knew he’d play the game – their game, their way. Corporate America that is! the american people are too damned stupid to see the light! Trouble is, we all have to pay for it! Particularly those countries (over 70 of them) that have military bases and/or war mongers in their midst!
What, they don’t have heaters and lights on in the mornings?? Making the daylight savings time changeback very nearly closer to the winter solstice than the autumn equinox is crazy. They might as well change time zones permanently and be done with it.
Sorry, in the third-last para, that should be “Pennsylvania and Illinois”, not “Pennsylvania and Wisconsin”. As it happens the Republicans did eventually overhaul them in both, but they were always ahead in Wisconsin.