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(Trends Wide) — What the hell were you trying to tell us here, America?
Simple narratives are sometimes hard to break away from, especially when reinforced by Democrat gloating over avoiding a Republican loss in the midterms and conservative whimpering about poor performance.
At the very least, the divided election results may derail former President Donald Trump’s plan to capitalize on a Republican victory in the House of Representatives and announce a 2024 presidential bid. In fact, the most successful Republican on Tuesday was the current main rival within the party. of Trump, Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida.
The broader message may be that, surprisingly, the country is still very committed to its politics and divided over who should be in charge, though the lack of any major issues managing this election so far is something all Americans can celebrate.
Trends Wide’s Dana Bash noted Wednesday that the results will have a big impact. “This is a game changer election in the sense that things are going to change in a big way in Washington,” she said. “The White House, most importantly, will have to readjust.”
Is this a failure of the Republicans?
As historic as the overall failure of the GOP is, I’ll let the pundits run wild. And they have. The fact is that in recent memory – 2002, in the run-up to the war in Iraq – George W. Bush’s Republican Party actually won House seats in his first half term.
So the Democrats’ performance so far seems to be better than average, but it’s unprecedented.
At the very least, they defied expectations. But there is a lot of nuance here, and Democrats need to be careful about declaring victory in an election in which they are likely to lose the House.
The fact is that with dozens of undecided House races, Republicans are still well on their way to taking control of it. It would be a small, messy majority beholden to the conservative fringe, but it would be a majority nonetheless. That would mean no more Speaker Nancy Pelosi, no more Jan. 6 commission, and no more legislation passed without the support of a majority of Republicans.
The narrowest margin of the House
From the Trends Wide Election Center as I write this Wednesday night:
Balance of power: 206 Republican seats against 187 Democrats.
Featured fights: 42.
I see Republicans leading in 14 of those 42 featured races, but it’s too early to project.
It’s not crazy to say, for argument’s sake, that the Republicans could have around 221 seats, a four-seat majority. That leaves little room for error, and whoever can muster the votes to be House speaker — let’s assume it’s Kevin McCarthy, but probably not many Republicans are too enthusiastic about him right now — will have a tough job.
There is a divided Senate for now
Yes, Democrats won a key Senate seat in Pennsylvania. But Republicans are leading a key Senate race in Nevada, which would put the balance of power in that chamber exactly where it has been: divided.
In a case where history repeats itself, a Georgia Senate runoff in December could once again decide who controls the US Senate.
That’s assuming Senator Mark Kelly’s slim lead remains in Arizona. The 2020 example suggests that late vote counting could benefit Republicans.
There are no winners yet in Arizona and Nevada. That could be a big problem for future elections
Arizona’s Democrat running for governor, Katie Hobbs, has an even narrower lead over Republican Kari Lake, the former TV host turned gubernatorial candidate. Lake is still in the hunt to become Arizona’s next governor, even though she has already alleged wrongdoing in an election she could still win. If she is elected, she has promised to completely overhaul the way the state conducts elections.
If Lake can get by in Arizona and/or Republican Joe Lombardo maintains his lead over Democratic incumbent Governor Steve Sisolak in the Nevada gubernatorial race, it would take some of the shine off two wins Democrats made in the races for Governors of Massachusetts and Maryland. We’ll see. They are still counting votes.
The Republican running for secretary of state in Nevada, Jim Marchant, a 2020 election denier who has a plan to overhaul elections there, also has the smallest lead as votes continue to be counted.
Voters like Democratic priorities better than Democrats
If the GOP holds the Nevada leads for the US Senate, governor and secretary of state, Silver State voters will have handed over much of their state’s power to Republicans while voting for some Democratic priorities , such as a state Equal Rights Amendment and a measure to increase the state minimum wage.
The backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision to end abortion rights across the country may have helped Democrats stem a Republican wave that failed to materialize.
But Democrats should take a hard look at exit polling data suggesting that a quarter of the vast majority of voters who said abortion should be legal in all or most cases voted for a Republican.
Ohio and Florida are now painted red
There are also regional developments that should give Democrats pause.
The two most crucial battleground states of the 1990s and early 2000s, Ohio and Florida, are now fully Republican.
Republicans are now the majority party in Florida, and DeSantis easily dispatched former Gov. Charlie Crist and gave Republicans hope that a conservative can seduce a diverse state and particularly Latino voters.
In other states, there is also evidence that Democrats need to do more to appeal to Latino voters. More Texans are Latino than any other racial subgroup, and yet they were just over 20% of voters in this election in Texas, when Republicans again dashed Democrats’ hopes of making gains in the state.
Republican Party earnings in New York
Republicans also made gains in New York, including Long Island, winning several House seats in one of the bluest states. That’s in part because a court there wouldn’t allow Democrats to weigh in on congressional districts the way Republicans did in Florida, Texas and elsewhere.
Among the New York seats won by Republicans was the Lower Hudson Valley district of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who spearheaded Democrats’ strategy in Congress this year. Maloney conceded to his Republican challenger on Wednesday. His controversial strategy included helping the most extreme Republicans, the Trumpists, win several Republican House primaries around the country.
Maloney’s deal with the devil was risky, but it paid off for Democrats, who won all of those races, according to Politico. Meanwhile, Maloney will be out of a job in January. Pelosi told his colleagues that he “took an arrow” for them.
She called it a “pyrrhic victory,” which makes some sense, except it might not end up being a victory at all. We’ll have to wait and see.
