The common wisdom is that the party of the president loses seats in the midterms. And the less popular the president, the more seats his or her party loses in the midterms. And if the economy is problematic, the party in charge will lose even more seats. And so on.
All of this led pundits, forecasters, and everyday bloviators to predict a Red Wave this election. Republicans were going to take everything, including the kitchen sink: the Senate, the House, multiple governorships, various judgeships, and so on. It was going to be a bloodbath for the Democratic Party.
Guess what? Didn’t happen.
In fact, the Red Wave was barely more than a ripple. At this point (11 AM on the day after), it appears that Dems may hold not only the Senate, but possibly even the House. And a number of Democratic candidates who had been seen as “in trouble” wound up winning, sometimes by healthy margins.
Overall, the Democratic Party outperformed past midterm results by a large amount, as Never-Trumper Bill Kristol predicted a few days ago.
Some noteworthy races and results
Here’s a few of the races and results that helped put an end to the “red wave” meme:
- John Fetterman won the Pennsylvania Senate seat over Dr. Oz, which is a pickup for the Dems.
- Dem governors Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) and Tony Evers (Wisconsin) both won reelection.
- Dem Laura Kelly won the governorship in Kansas.
- Massachusetts elected an openly lesbian governor, Maura Healey.
- Maryland elected Wes Moore as governor, which makes Moore only the third black to be elected governor in the history of the United States.
- Vermont, California, and Michigan voters put abortion rights in their state constitutions.
- Washington, D.C., voted to give tipped workers a raise by eliminating the tipped sub-minimum wage.
- Nebraska voters raised their state’s minimum wage.
- Michigan didn’t just vote for abortion rights and Gretchen Whitmer – its state legislature flipped to Democrats.
Of course, it wasn’t all peaches and cream. Tim Ryan lost to J.D. Vance in Ohio, a horrible choice for that state. And, two notorious and noxius Repubs of note won their races: Ken Paxton, he of securities fraud, won reelection as Texas AG; and Kris Kobach, who sees voting conspiracies in every corner, became Kansas’s AG again.
But, here’s one more race that just puts the cherry on top for me when it comes to the non-existent Red Wave: Lauren Boebert (R-Unhinged) looks like she is going to lose her seat in Congress. As I said in my Daily Take this morning: Hahahahahahaha.
All for now – will update as more news comes in.
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