Three words you will never hear from pundits and pollsters: “I was wrong.” Crikey warned you to ignore them. They know not what they do.
In a historic performance, Democrats have defied the “experts” with a resounding result in the US midterms. With Georgia, Arizona and Nevada still undecided, they have not lost any senators, while John Fetterman (D) delivered a knockout to Mehmet Oz (R) to capture Pennsylvania’s open seat. No need to wait for days. Astronaut Mark Kelly appears poised to hold his seat in Arizona, while it will be several days before the count is finalised in Nevada due to its all-mail voting.
Incumbent Georgia senator Raphael Warnock (D) won the most votes in his race, but fell just short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff against Donald Trump’s hand-picked candidate Herschel Walker (R). The runoff will be held on December 6. Depending on other outcomes, it could be a replay of the 2021 showdown that delivered control of the Senate to the Democrats. Walker faces an uphill battle without the coattails of reelected Georgia governor Brian Kemp (R) to help turn out dispirited Republican voters again. If Senate control is off the table, his challenge will only be harder.
Control of the 118th House of Representatives won’t be known for several days. Early Republican gains in Florida proved isolated. January 6 Committee member Elaine Luria (D) lost a close contest in Virginia’s 2nd district (VA-2), but her colleagues Abigail Spanberger (D, VA-7) and Jennifer Wexton (D, VA-10) stood firm. These were early indicators that the predicted red wave was scarcely a ripple.
As successive state polls closed across the nation, Democrats flipped a few House seats of their own. In Ohio, Democrats defied an illegal Republican gerrymander — maps rejected multiple times by the state’s Supreme Court — to flip two House seats. First-term firebrand Lauren Boebert (R, CO-3) faces defeat. With 90% of the vote tallied, she trails her Democratic opponent in her reelection bid in a once-safe Republican district.
It’s axiomatic that first-term presidents lose seats in the midterms. Trump lost 40 seats. Obama shed 63. Clinton surrendered 52. Reagan dropped 26. Victory in the Cold War and the confrontation with Saddam Hussein helped George HW Bush stem losses to 8 seats. His son George W Bush is the only president since 1934 to have defied the trend, due to the rally effect caused by 9/11 and the War in Afghanistan. Relying on this pattern, soothsayers predicted a double-digit shellacking for President Biden’s party. They were wrong.
Republicans might eke out a narrow majority in the House, but they know this is a dreadful result. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy spent the past two years prostrating himself before Trump and the MAGA mob in a Faustian bargain to become speaker. Now he might be thwarted, even if Republicans gain the gavel. Emboldened MAGA members may install their own champion. If McCarthy does somehow occupy the post, he will have no control over his caucus. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her fellow travellers will run riot, providing a daily reminder to voters of Republicans’ real priorities.
Down-ballot races revealed the full extent of the Democrats’ triumph. Their Midwestern blue wall held as they retained governorships in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These wins were critical to foil Republican schemes to interfere with the 2024 presidential election. Katie Hobbs (D) leads narrowly in the Arizona governor’s contest over Trump-backed election liar Kari Lake (R). New York governor Kathy Hochul (D) crushed her opponent Lee Zeldin (R), another blowout the pundits got wrong. Elsewhere Democrats gained governors’ offices in Maryland and Massachusetts, and kept the mansion in Republican stronghold Kansas. Republicans have yet to win a single gubernatorial fight.
Meanwhile Democrats also outperformed in state legislatures. In Michigan they took charge of both lower and upper chambers for the first time in almost four decades. They did the same in Minnesota, securing unified control for the first time since 2014. Control of the Pennsylvania legislature remains lineball. Democrats also prevented veto-proof Republican supermajorities in North Carolina and Wisconsin, meaning that the Democratic governors of both states cannot be bypassed.
Voters capped the results by mirroring the recent Kansas referendum to protect abortion rights in five states: California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont. This underscored the most important driver behind these returns: Dobbs changed everything! Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Democracy was on the ballot, but it was Dobbs that brought women to the polls in record numbers. Women sent Republicans packing.
The other key takeaway to burn into your minds is that Donald Trump and his MAGA base have now been rejected three elections in a row since scraping home in 2016. America had one bad night six years ago and has been fighting the hangover ever since. However, the diverse majority outnumbers the Jim Crow minority. This margin is only headed in one direction.
Don’t expect the pundits to skip a beat. Already they are pivoting to 2024 and praising Ron DeSantis for his success in the Sunshine State. He is their new pin-up to supplant Trump. Save your brain cells and your time. Florida is sui generis. DeSantis is a flat-track bully not ready for prime time. Republican officials remain terrified of Trump and his base. Whether he runs again or not, Trump will crush DeSantis like a bug.
Democrats made history yesterday. As comedian Noel Casler noted, the red wave turned out to be a red wedding. And Republicans are in disarray.
You may well be right about Trump crushing DeSantis. Even if DeSantis gets the Republican nomination, Trump will gather his hordes of MAGA zealots and, I strongly suspect, do a Kanye and run independently. Imagine the results of that. The Republican strategists are probably chanting incantations to Satan in the hope that it doesn’t occur.
ooh, yes please – have Trump run as an independent, lose, and then get thrown in the slammer for stealing his supporters donations!
unless of course, now that the Jan 6 committee can continue its business unmolested by the GOP, Trump goes to jail sooner rather than later
Most republican politicians hate and fear Trump and his noisy rabid followers. The electoral results of his endorsed candidates mirrors his general lack of appeal. The sooner they stand up to him and call his bluff the better..
Heh. That’s the problem with basing your party’s appeal on greed and selfishness – you tend to attract people who are greedy and selfish. If they’re charismatic it all goes well for a while. Eventually though it turns out that “they all want it all”, and they’re not that good at sharing and compromise. That’s when the feuding gets feral.
Which is just fine with the rest of us. As long as they’re busy fighting each other…
I hate to burst your bubble, but if Trump goes to jail it won’t be due to the “results” of the Jan 6 committee. The committee will find, on balance, that Trump “probably” incited his followers. The Democrats will point to the conclusion and use it as a talking point. The Republicans and their followers will continue to ignore the committee and any outcome. Stalemate goes on.
Trump is a narcissist who cannot bear to lose. I think he will only nominate for 2024 if he knows he will win. Running as a MAGA independent will only split the Republican vote, ensuring a victory for whoever runs on the Democratic ticket.
Agree, me thinks 18 months of chaos for the GOP to follow with Trump vs. DeSantis et al., but will be presented in an anodyne fashion by legacy media preferring to focus upon the real &/or imagined problems of the Democrats…..
If I was American and a Democrat supporter I would be hoping for exactly this to happen, then split the right wing vote…. making it a Democrat walk in for the next election.
I feel like the sad reality here is while this is a great result for the democrats historically, it’s still a disaster if it means Republicans control either house because of how disinterested they are in having a functional government or trying to improve things in the nation. American politics for a while now has been reduced to a power game, and this result could still tip it in favour of people who take delight in making the legislative branch of government ineffective.
Conspiracy theories of electoral rigging aside, it’s truly hard to imagine why such tactics are rewarded at the ballot box time and time again. Honestly, every one of these government-hating self-serving politicians is there because that’s who is voted to serve the people. We can only conclude that this is what the people want in a politician…
The words of HL Mencken feel oddly appropriate now: “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
See the movie “Idocracy”, for a preview.
A shirt movie , but seems to be prophetic these days.
I think you mean “Idiocracy” and it’s quite prophetic and not just for the Yanks. The number of people here wearing “Activewear” seems to be growing…….
As an aside, I recently rewatched Jaws, and if I hadn’t been watching during the pandemic I wouldn’t have found the town mayor begging people to go back in the water very realistic.
“Republican officials remain terrified of Trump and his base”
Who they need votes from to win so will gladly court again
Is there a strong,honest Republicans in the US brave enough to say Trump has no cloths and thinks Christians are the most gullible people in the country?
If you haven’t watched the full interviews with various Republicans from Frontline’s Lies, Politics and Democracy episode, you might find them interesting. It took a while to get through them all, but I found them fascinating. They’re on YouTube.
I wouldn’t be laughing just yet. Senate is 49 R vs 48 D with 2 seats extremely likely to be taken by the Replicans (Alaska and Nevada) and Georgia to go to a runoff. House also looks likely to be a Republican majority at this time (207R v 184 D) The Dems did better than expected but they haven’t won. This is like saying “we didn’t lose by as much as expected”. It’s not a win.
Who expected a ‘win’ for the Democrats when media was in lock step on a red tsunami? If you go back look at past mid-terms which historically punish the incumbents, these mid-terms have been quite benign for the Democrats compared with the shelackings of the recent past?
Benign is not a win. The reality is that on a vote for vote basis, the Republicans received far more votes than the Dems (in total). The Dems were lucky that most of these were in existing red seats so there was a red wave, it just didn’t translate into the Dems losing as many seats. But they are still going backwards. The House will probably be Red and the Senate is looking more and more likely.
Less patting themselves on the back for only losing a little and more focus on 2 years from now is required.
I’ll write this slowly, one neither claimed a win nor focused just on this election, but compared to actual shelackings of the past.
The historical record shows that the GOP did not go that well compared to other midterms for the party not in government.
Now the fun begins whatever balance of power is between the Democrats and GOP, as the latter now have a potential civil war masquerading as Presidential campaign between Trump and DeSantis or others, for 18 months….. Meanwhile changing demographics continue to go against the GOP’s internal demographics and policies including PR/comms promoting eugenics etc.
No, GOP, pollsters, gaslighting and their media were predicting a ‘red tsunami’, more as suggestive agitprop to get others joining in, but it didn’t happen.
You can’t be restricted by an “Australian” take on it. Things aren’t considered in the narrow (though incredibly important) terms you are suggesting.
The situations in the states are also very important – for electing officials and for various legal changes around things like abortion and healthcare. There is also the big picture road to autocracy playing into things.
Losing by less than expected is not a “win” no matter how you look at it.
Too many elections in the US for everything from dog catcher upwards. While it may appear “democratic” it is actually divisive. In reality, the US is a collection of states that constantly war against each other and everyone else on the planet. As a result, nothing meaningful for the citizens gets done. The US is nothing like us in reality and hasn’t been since Truman and Eisenhower.
The US has been an Authoritarian nation for decades despite the image they try to project. Just disagree with the US Federal Government on anything and see how far you get. The Dems and Reps are as bad as each other with both not being willing to work together for their common good unless forced to do so.
Dubya, Obama, Trump and Biden all “promised the world and delivered an atlas”. There does not appear to be any Dem that stands out from the crowd unfortunately. They now have 2 years to get their house in order and they had best “digitus extractus” in that area.
The less we have to do with this feral nation the better.
Let’s not forget that Trump won in 2016 because the Democrats are still owned and run by the corporations while Obama proved himself to be the banker’s best friend who did nothing for the working class, dropped more killer drones on the Middle East than his predecessor, deported more immigrants than any other president in history (including trump) and, after promising to protect whistleblowers doubled down on the prosecution of Snowden and Assange.
Trump won in 2016 because the alternative was Hilary.