I think the clearest indication as to
how good a night the Democrats had came from when the New York Times interview
our President last night.
He told them he would accept the
results of the election. No deflecting, no rigged system, no steal. He just
said he'd accept the results. To be sure he then wrote a long tirade on Twitter
that said that this wasn't his fault but everyone else's but the thing is for
the first time in a long time Republican elected officials – the few that are
left – aren't having it. They've been clearer on how bad things were going to
be for them of weeks and now they're in the position that I suspect Steve
Scalise and Jim Jordan are going to be looking over the House map the way FEMA
looks for survivors after a natural disaster. Every time a Republican emerges
they'll go: "We found one!"
I'm actually going to leave the House
out of my recounting because nearly a full day after voting we're still not
sure how massive the Democratic majority in the House will me. (That
phrase looks very strange even after I wrote it down.) We've already won 231
seats and there are still over 60 left to call. MSNBC thinks it might be at
least 250 seats that go Democrat which if it were to happen would be a
margin that is very close to JFK-LBJ era House numbers. So I'm just going to
wait about that and talk about what we know in statewide races. And having
watched CNN and MSNBC as well as most of the major networks the seasoned
panelists who'd been there for decades were astonished by some of the results
and even more by some of the margins.
As well as they should be.
Increasingly I was bullish on the Democrats taking the Senate back as well as
us winning a majority of governorships. And I knew as a result a lot of history
would be made. But even I underestimated just how big last night was – or for
that matter how much bigger it could. So let's look at some of the biggest
takeaways just from the Senator and Governor races alone.
Much of the Democrats gains are
because of Trump.
The most obvious example of this in
Texas. After the runoff with John Cornyn and Ken Paxton both surviving the GOP
establishment wanted Trump to endorse Cornyn to ensure they'd hold it instead
of Paxton who everyone knew was a weak candidate. Trump was in his retribution
mode and endorse Paxton who won the primary in a landslide. And as we've seen
James Talarico managed to do something no Democrat has done in Texas since 1988
and win a Senate seat – in a landslide.
In South Carolina Trump did as much
damage when he encouraged Darline Graham, who was the caretaker for her brother's
seat after he tragically passed away this July, to run for the nomination in
her own right. She did but even as she won she demonstrated weakness in foreign
policy and was ineffective on the campaign trail. Pundits foresaw a close race
but thanks in large part to the biggest turnout in South Carolina history for a
midterm, Annie Andrews won fairly comfortably.
Trump's pressure on GOP Senators who he
considered insufficiently loyal to him in the early days of his second term caused
Thom Tillis in North Carolina and Joni Ernst in Iowa not to seek reelection. Roy
Cooper had such a big margin that the GOP pulled money out of North Carolina in
October and Josh Turek managed to win a narrow victory over Ashley Hinson. Both
are the first Democrats to win in these states since 2008.
There's now a New South.
Much of the focus this cycle has been
on James Talarico in Texas for good reason but this midterms mark the best
performance by the Democrats in the South since the late 1990s. Talarico,
Andrews and Cooper flipped three Southern states. Jon Ossoff who was considered
the most vulnerable Democratic senator this cycle won reelection in a landslide
that has led many to consider him a Presidential frontrunner in two years.
As I speak the Mississippi Senate race
– which not even I dared think we had a chance in hell of winning – is basically
too close to call with Scott Colom and Cindy Hyde-Smith separated by less
than a hundred votes as of this writing. What's more Democrats
overperformed even in states they lost. Julia Letlow in Louisiana barely
managed to hold off a challenge by Jamie Davis and Tom Cotton, though still
easily winning election in Arkansas, won by just 14 points instead of the 33
last time.
We all this play out in two historical
gubernatorial wins for America. Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first African-American
woman to win a governor's race in history when she managed to win governor of
Georgia. Even more ground-shaking was Gina Hinjosa's landslide victory over
Greg Abbott in Texas in which she won by more than 8 points to become the first
LatinX female governor of that state. (More on that later)
What's the Matter with Kansas? Very
Little.
Even more seismic than Talarico's win
in Texas was Adam Hamilton's landslide win in the Kansas Senate seat where a
Democrat hasn't won since 1932. Like Talarico Hamilton is a pastor and
both of them sounding very much like preachers in their early appearances on TV
this morning. I mean that in a good way.
Is Florida a swing state again?
In the last decade Florida has been
increasingly a ruby red state. Last night it showed signs that it might be
coming back in play.
To be sure both Angie Nixon and David
Jolly did both lose the Senate and Gubernatorial races last night. But both came
much closer than any Democrat has for either in the last twenty years. Nixon's
race is even more impressive, considering no one expected her to win the
primary and she had almost no money to go into this campaign and yet she only
lost to Ashley Moody by 3 percent which is astounding. Moody will have to seek
reelection for a full term in two years and there's now a convincing argument
Nixon should be her opponent again that not even I would have said a week ago.
I must also give Byron Donalds congratulation
for the history he made becoming the first African-American governor of
Florida. Though he won't be alone because…
The Midwest is Under Democratic
Control
I mentioned in an article in September
how essential for the Democratic Party that we do well in the Midwest, not just
in the Senate races but in gubernatorial ones. Well we managed to do just that.
All four of the Democratic governors I
paid tribute to: Rob Sand in Iowa, Jocelyn Benson in Michigan, David Crowley in
Wisconsin and Amy Acton in Ohio all won last night, many by margins greater
than some of the Senate candidates running in each state. With JB Pritzker
easily winning reelection we now have the kind of control Democrats haven't had
at a state level in that region of the country since the 2006 midterms.
Pritzker is currently a contender for
the Democratic nomination for President in 2028 and I could see scenarios where
Sand and Acton would be down the road. But that's for much later.
As Maine Goes, So Does Susan Collins
Who would've thought Susan Collins losing
reelection in Maine, one of the biggest Democratic desire for nearly two
decades, would practically be an afterthought on election night? By the
time Collins conceded to Troy Jackson around midnight, the entire media
apparatus, not to mention the Democratic establishment, had spent the night
dancing for joy on the rest of the country. That's how good a night it was for
Democrats. We finally get something we've been chasing for 20 years and when we
finally got it, it's icing on an already ridiculous frosted cake.
As of this writing this has been one
of the great nights in Democratic Party history already. We have flipped
7 senate seats and there may be two more by the time this is all over. (Fingers
crossed for Mary Peltola.) We've won 28 governorships and there may yet
be two more. (It's looking good for JKT too.) But there may be one last big lesson
that the Republicans have to take away from this.
As of last night, there's no such
thing as a safe seat for the GOP.
The Republicans have managed to do
much to create Congressional gridlock because of a combination of gerrymandering
giving them a big base in the House and a reliance of rural red states over
blue urban ones. The gerrymandering clearly backfired badly in the House and the
Democrats just pretty much demolished their power in the Senate. I suspect, by
the way, the argument that small states
have too much power is going to take a major hit going forward mainly
because we just showed how much you can win in those states if you make the
effort. (More on that when the final House count is in.
The Republican Party was never going
to magically discover its morals one day; they sold those out a bit before
Trump arrived. Political survival as a party, however, that's going to have to
scare even the most far-right Republicans straight – or at least to the center.
(Did I mention that as I write this Lauren Boebert may lose reelection? More on
that as it develops.) They've clung to Donald Trump believing that he was the
only way they could hold on to political power but that was always going to
have an expiration date – and that date seems to have been yesterday. At this
point they have not to consider what their future is after Trump but to make
sure they have a future at all. This election was bad enough. The next
one is almost certainly going to be worse for them – and at a certain level
they have to know it.
As of this moment Election Day 2026 is
a watershed event. Perhaps it will be the moment, after a decade of chaos and
insanity, when America finally regained its senses. My faith in democracy and
the system has never wavered once in the last two years And yesterday the electorate rewarded it tenfold
at least. Try to hold on to that hope. It is a good thing.
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