Although it seems likely that Joe Biden will win the presidential election, the “blue wave” expected by many experts and liberals has simply not materialized. In fact, there was something of a red wave in the vote, resulting in a number of consequences that favored the GOP. At the presidential level, Trump is poised to win 70 million votes. He has already gone The previous all-time record was Barack Obama’s in 2008. The president’s vote total exceeded his 2016 tally by about the population of the entire state of Massachusetts. The huge turnout didn’t wash him away; it gave him strength and if a few factors had changed, he could have won re-election. The bad news for Trump is that the novel all-time US vote leader is his opponent. Biden will easily win both the “popular vote” and the electoral college. If one knew only this election result, one could easily be forgiven for assuming that Democrats made significant gains elsewhere at the federal and state levels. But that didn’t happen.
As we’ve already mentioned, Senate Republicans likely managed to maintain their majority thanks to an incredible string of victories in select states. Two of their weakest incumbents lost, as the polls suggested, but another very vulnerable MP (Susan Collins of Maine) won easily. They swamped literally every other race that Democrats and the media saw as potentially beneficial. Key to this achievement was Joni Ernst’s decisive victory in Iowa and the highly probable victory of Thom Tillis (see here) wins in North Carolina, defying polls. As of this writing, Alaska remains unnamed, but Republican sources I spoke to are fully confident the race is under control. That’s 50 seats in Mitch McConnell’s conference. If the GOP manages to win one or both runoffs in Georgia (it will be favored for several reasons, which I will write about soon), it will be a clear majority. It is very likely, if not likely, that the GOP will lose only one Senate seat on a net basis to Joe Biden in one evening will rise approximately 75 million votes. Extraordinary.
But the Senate was always in play. The bigger surprise is what is happening in the House of Representatives. One of the reasons some astute analysts like Dave Wasserman have repeatedly said they think Trump could lose a real upset was because congressional district-level polls showed it looked quite ugly for the GOP and showed no characteristic movement that predicted Trump’s upset in 2016. Most respected political forecasters agreed that Democrats in the House of Representatives were on the verge of increasing their majority, which would further strengthen the position of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I caved to this by writing that single-digit losses would be a decent result for House Republicans. In fact, as of this writing, the GOP has gained at least ten seats in the lower house, and connected sources tell me it will likely have between 209 and 214 seats in the novel Congress compared to 197 currently. That would mean the Democratic position would be the slimmest majority in the House of Representatives in decades. It would also mean a relatively tiny gain in popularity for the Republican Party to retake the chamber in 2022, which would historically favor the party opposed to the newly elected president. Side note: House Republicans diversify and recruit well – they win or are extremely competitive in races where their candidates are women and/or people of color and/or military veterans. One tiny snapshot: :
Stephanie Bice, winner #OK05 who flipped the seat back to the GOP, is the first Iranian-American woman elected to Congress — one of several Republicans of color (Yvette Herrell, Maria Salazar and potentially several in California) elected this cycle.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 6, 2020
The furious accusations are already underway and still simmering furious conference callsAND to the press. Funnily enough, Pelosi tried to claim a “mandate” after presiding over this mess:
Even with tens of thousands of votes still to be counted, shocked Democratic lawmakers, strategists and advisers privately began to blame unreliable polling. GOP law-and-order message amid summer unrest. “Trump’s Hidden Voters.” The post-impeachment hangover. No coronavirus stimulus deal… Democrats, including Bustos and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, boasted about expanding their majority, with some even predicting they could gain as many as a dozen House seats by taking away GOP territory in suburban Texas, Ohio and Illinois. But on Wednesday morning, party officials and rank-and-file workers panicked… Some Democrats were more blunt privately: “It’s a dumpster fire.” said one lawmaker, who declined to be named.
AOC dismisses the frustrations of her less radical colleagues as completely baseless because of racismso everything is going well:
How to make it less effective? Invest in year-round deep acquisition. The data shows that this kind of work helps blunt the power of racial animosity in polls.
If you’re always running away from conversations about race, the only people who own it are the GOP. You will lose.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 6, 2020
At the state level, there was really only one governorship on the line this cycle: Montana. Given that the state’s outgoing Democratic governor ran for Senate and lost (pretty easily), it was an open seat, and Republicans we won it. The Republican Party will now control 27 of the country’s 50 governorates. In state legislative elections, Republicans have something to cheer about, while Democrats have gained nothing. Despite Joe Biden’s huge showing across the country, Democrats at the state level failed to flip a single state legislature anywhere in the country, while Republicans overtook advantage in several and retook both houses in New Hampshire (where Republican Gov. won re-election by 32 points, even though Trump lost the state by seven). Some at the state level wreck extended to Democratic leaders in very Democratic places:
Democratic House speakers in navy blue Rhode Island and Vermont lost their re-election bids to Republicans. What an extraordinary election cycle.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 5, 2020
The real result of Republican successes and Democratic failures is not just in legislation, but in the law itself Redistricting of Congress: :
Here’s another thing for Republicans to be elated about after Tuesday. Some Democrats’ dismal performance in state legislative races on Tuesday not only deprived them of victories in Sun Belt and Rust Belt states that would have enabled them to advance their policy agenda, but also put the party at a disadvantage for redistricting that will determine the balance of power for the next decade. .The results could spark domination of American politics by helping the GOP draw favorable legislative maps for Congress and the state, ensuring Democrats remain the minority party in key state legislatures. Ultimately, this could mean more Republicans in Washington — and in state capitals. As of Wednesday evening, Democrats had not tipped a single state house in their favor. It remained completely blocked in the mapping process in several key states — including Texas, North Carolina and Florida, which could have a combined 82 congressional seats by 2022 — where the GOP retained control of state legislatures
It was another dud by experts on this issue:
Cook’s report last month: “Ominously for Republicans, the GOP has 14 of 19 chambers vulnerable on our list. This suggests that Democrats are well positioned to create up to six new chambers this fall, and more if it is a true blue wave.” Democrats won zero.
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) November 6, 2020
I will leave you with a few rays of sanity in…California: :
“CALIFORNIA voters rejected affirmative action, resoundingly rejected expanding rent control and gutted a law providing greater job protections for rideshare drivers and delivery drivers, a move that had strong union support.”https://t.co/6GZdHPtLFC
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) November 6, 2020
