The first headline I saw this morning was about the red wave that wasn’t, so I figured it was safe to check returns. (Congratulations John Fetterman!) As I write this there are four Senate contests that are still too close to call — Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Alaska. Dems need win only two of those to keep the 50-vote majority. Of course, a 52-vote majority would be even better. Some of these states still have a lot of votes to count, and the Georgia contest might go to a runoff, so we probably won’t know about the Senate today.
The House is still up for grabs, too. I’m reading that Republicans will likely end up with an 8- to 15-seat majority, a big comedown from what they expected. Which brings me to the gripe that 17 Republican incumbent House members ran unopposed yesterday. What’s up with that? I realize these probably are considered “safe” seats and not worth wasting money contesting, but some of them were in “purple” states, like Pennsylvania. And it’s always possible some “safe” Republican candidate will be caught with his pants down, and the “safe” seat is suddenly not so safe. Every seat matters.
Yesterday Missouri passed a referendum (by 53% of the vote as of this morning) legalizing marijuana for recreational use. This was not a big surprise; the surprise was that there was hardly anything said about this issue either in news media or television advertising over the past several weeks. I bet a lot of voters didn’t know the referendum was on the ballot. I am guessing the Republicans who run the state wanted to keep it quiet, thinking that a person who votes for legal pot might also vote for Democrats. But that doesn’t excuse news media.
Last week we got an absolutely hilarious robo-call from my MAGA U.S. representative, Jason Smith, in which Smith was ranting that legalizing pot would lead to teaching Critical Race Theory in schools. I am not kidding. Smith currently has 76% of the vote, with 56% of votes counted. And this is why we can’t have nice things.
I have no idea when legal pot goes into effect, but I hope it’s before the next election.
Big Loser last night was Donald Trump. His anointed candidates were mostly responsible for dragging down Republican wins. Aaron Blake writes at WaPo that Trump cost Republicans the Senate in 2020, and it looks like he will cost them the Senate again this year.
Republicans gave Trump a pass after the 2020 Georgia runoffs, seemingly in part because the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters (which transpired the next day) so abruptly shifted the focus and because they decided the impeachment process that followed demanded a united front. And they no doubt fear what Trump could do to the party if it turns on him, which will temper any true reckoning with what Trump has wrought in the 2022 election.
But in 2020, Trump became the first president since the Great Depression to lose the House, the Senate and the presidency in a single term. And you’d think ushering the party to a potential loss of a very winnable Senate majority and a subpar midterm election might cause certain people to decide maybe this isn’t working for them.
They’ll probably just hope that it blows over — a tack they have almost always taken — and that DeSantis or someone else will come to their rescue in 2024 without forcing them to confront all of this. But they had a chance to attempt a full break with Trump in early 2021, and no doubt many of them are ruing that they didn’t force the issue then.
The bigger question, seems to me, is what will Republican mega-donors do? The deep pocket guys aren’t necessarily Trump supporters or election deniers, but they gave many millions of dollars to Super PACs that funded MAGA election denier candidates. And many if not most of those candidates lost yesterday. At what point (assuming they haven’t already) do they put in the phone calls to tell the RNC to cut ties with Trump, or they’re putting their wallets away?
Today there are reports from credible sources (like Maggie Haberman) that Trump is absolutely enraged and screaming at everyone today about why they advised him to back such loser candidates. And the GOP is pressuring Trump to not announce he is running for POTUS again in 2024, an announcement that is expected next week. I understand they had to practically bribe him to keep him from announcing before the midterms. He wants to declare very early to discourage challengers and also, I assume, to be able to claim that he can’t be prosecuted if he’s a credible presidential candidate. But he was expecting to be able to gloat about how his candidates were big winners, and now he can’t do that. His big party at Mar-a-Lago last night fizzled, and now the estate is under evacuation orders because of Tropical Storm Nicole. I don’t know if the Trumps evacuated.
Today Ron DeSantis is suddenly looking like the front runner for 2024, and other ambitious Republicans are also probably making phone calls today to put their exploratory committees together. After yesterday it should be obvious that Trump would be a big risk and top-of-the-ticket buzzkill for the GOP if he runs in 2024. This makes me suspect that a whole lot of Powers That Be on the Right, like Mitch McConnell, the RNC, Fox News, and the rest of right-wing media, are less likely to go to the wall defending Trump when the indictments begin. It would be better for their party if Trump goes down with criminal charges and is out of contention, and the sooner the better. Surely most of them in the upper echelons of the Republican party realize that now.
DeSantis beat Christ by almost 20 points. Trump-endorsed candidates lost big or barely squeaked by. Fox had had DeSantis on so often this year – obviously, Murdoch has given DeSantis his blessing.
If Mr DeSantis were to announce a presidential bid, Mr Trump said he would reveal "things about him that won't be very flattering – I know more about him than anybody – other than, perhaps, his wife".
Digby today thought that DeSantis margin of victory compared to Trump's pathetic performance is the main story.
Looks to me like control of the Senate will be determined by a Georgia runoff.
I certainly do think that Trump's power and influence within the Republican Party is now very much reduced from what it was yesterday. And the Powers That Be probably will be giving DeSantis the same glowing coverage they used to give to Trump, while Trump may find they're not returning his calls any more.
"Trump's power and influence within the Republican Party is now very much reduced"
I hope so but we'll see. I never dreamed he would recover from Jan. 6th, but a couple weeks after the GQP were on their knees at Mara Largo? He's like a damn cockroach!
Well, here we go changing things again. Just when I was getting used to History repeating itself but never exactly in the same way, now this. Where do we go now? History repeats itself unless it skips a predicted red wave once in a while. How about climate change may be causing fluctuations in History's repeatability? I'd go with Only Trump can screw up a sure thing. He did bankrupt a casino you know.
Here's my $0.02's worth:
The Tangerine Spleen is scared, and angry.
He's gotta take care of "scared," first. So, he won't listen to people calling for him to sit '24 out. He'll announce he's running soon – hoping to use his presidential candidacy as sanctuary against DOJ efforts.
Don't get me wrong. tRUMP WANTS to be the '24 candidate. Then, if he wins, he can take revenge on Biden, RINO's, the media, etc…
But he doesn't have to run as the RepubliKKKLAN candidate to get revenge on people.
If he tries but fails at the GQP (How long will Q last now?) nomination, he will try to take down the RepubliKKKLAN Party – and Ron Sanctimonious – by creatng his own "MAGA Party."
What do you folks think?
Don't forget the Big Grift. If Trump's an official candidate, he thinks the campaign contributions will start pouring in. That's what he's really mad about. That and he thinks being President will give him the power to dodge his massive pile of legal woes locking in on target. Take away that Presidential Seal and he's completely vulnerable.
Once he announces, there's new rules for how Trump can spend from that slush fund. I am curious about the small print and about enforcement
Yes, as far as putting money in his pockets is concerned, he's better off not declaring officially as long as possible.
@Doug at first I agreed with Digby, but now I agree with the WaPo, the most significant news is that the election-deniers lost big. Had they won, we’d be sweating out breakaway states, similar to what happens in other fracturing countries.
BTW, One of them, Mastriano, running for governor of PA, overwhelmingly lost to Josh Shapiro, and: he has yet to concede. Sort of like Bolsonaro in Brazil.
Glenn Youngkin has decided to run in 2024. He sent a hand written note to Nancy Pelosi apologizing for a smart ass remark about the attack on her husband. My infallible pundit opinion is that this means that he wants to be the alternative to DeSantis and Trump. He sees that they will soon be at one another’s throats. As they destroy one another, he figures that he will fill the role of “neither of those guys.” He looked at the midterms and saw that MAGA is not a winning brand and saw that now is the time to make a different one.
I think Youngkin was looking to run for president when he decided to run for governor of Virginia. He has been traveling the country building up support for a presidential run under the guise of supporting republican candidates.
The Dems helped him get into office by running an uninspiring rehashed Clintonesque neoliberal against him in Virginia. He seems convinced that being CEO of the Carlyle Group making billions more money for billionaires makes him qualified to be president.
Legalized pot does not mean they won't go after women over it. Women are being indicted and jailed for having 'evidence' of previous marijuana use in their lab results when they deliver or miscarry or deliver prematurely. It is assumed to be harmful with no studies establishing that. Remember a woman could use marijuana at 2 months before knowing she was pregnant and even deliver fullterm and be prosecuted
This nonsense may be why young people have turned out to vote in record numbers. Long ago the mother of a lass I was going with said, in her state, women were considered as chattel. We did not have chattel where I was from, and I had to ponder that statement for quite some time. I am thinking today's youth would reject any state where women were treated as chattel. This type of prosecution reeks of it.
So what I'm fearing now is geriatric Joe, despite his accomplishments, will be up against Florida Man, a generation or two younger. Not only do we need a capable fighter but it's going to be sickening to see DeSantis and the hate machine pummel an old man. On the other hand, it will expose the right's unabashed ugliness for the world to see – Joe might be the perfect foil to draw this out so anyone with a conscience can be sickened by it.
I love what Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote:
Great things happening in Michigan. Gretchen Whitmer won by double digits over the election denying wingnut, and both houses of the legislature are now controlled by Democrats, first time in 40 years. She has long been focused on abortion rights, and a referendum enshrining this in their constitution handily won. A star is born.
Who’s the Big International Loser in this Election? Russia. “This election might impact the outcome of a war.”
And it was my best one ever.
EVER!
Oh well.
Your loss. 😉
See if you can find it now. I got some things out of the filter.