Entirely predictably the knives are already out in the House for probable Speaker Kevin McCarthy. On cue they all come from the hard right of the caucus who believe the problem in 2022 is that Republicans weren’t sufficiently feral. More interesting is a push on the Senate side to delay the Republican leadership elections in the upper chamber. The wannabe mutineers don’t seem quite willing to say what they’re doing. They’re not coming out against McConnell, proposing an alternative leader or criticizing his management. But since McConnell’s leadership is almost universally assumed there’s only one logic and aim of delay.

ITEM One: I continue to be calmly stunned that the battle for control of the House still does not seem settled. Any Republican margin is likely to be so minuscule that it amounts to something of a poisoned chalice for Kevin McCarthy and the GOP generally. As I’ve noted repeatedly, the debt ceiling remains the sui generis, overriding thing. But if you set that aside, given that Democrats will not get 52 senate seats, in purely political terms there’s actually some real advantage in having Republicans hold the House by only one or two seats.

We need to remember that Donald Trump is a pathological liar. That said, I think this requires some explanation, if only a clear and definitive confirmation that this did not happen.

John Fetterman’s Pennsylvania Senate run turned out to be one of the most high-stakes, closely watched and — for many — most emotionally engaging of the cycle. Now we are going to learn how it unfolded from the inside. On Monday at 2 p.m. ET will be joined for a TPM Newsmaker briefing by Fetterman campaign manager Brendan McPhillips. We’ll talk about the early salad days when it seemed like Fetterman might win in a landslide, the tightening polls, press criticism over Fetterman’s absence from the campaign trail, the debate and what the campaign did to secure victory in the final days when many election analysts were predicting a Mehmet Oz win in a Republican wave.

TPM’s Kate Riga and I will lead the discussion and take your questions. The briefing is open to all TPM members. If you’re a member you should be receiving an email shortly with instructions on how to register and join us on Monday.

Democratic strategists Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonier were the two most prominent voices telling us for weeks that the 2022 Red Wave was a mirage. They were right. We talked to them yesterday about what they saw. If you weren’t able to join us live you can see the discussion after the jump.

One of the clearest takeaways from the 2022 midterm was that Trump-backed candidates did quite poorly. Meanwhile Ron DeSantis chalked up a thundering reelection victory in Florida, just shy of 60% of the vote. That is the kind of reelection victory that cues up a big state governor for a presidential run. DeSantis can say plausibly that he essentially owns the state of Florida and that he has a politics that sells in a large and diverse state. These factors have begun to coalesce into a push within the GOP to move not beyond Trumpism, which DeSantis embodies, but beyond Trump himself. Trump is old, profoundly divisive, in deep legal trouble. Meanwhile Republicans have suffered defeat in the last three electoral cycles largely because of opposition to him.

Moving away from Trump, though, will be a lot harder than it looks.

This has seemed more plausible over the course of the day. But events this evening make it seem like Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) very much has the inside track to claim reelection in Nevada. Not quite a lock. But getting close. Cortez Masto is currently still behind by about 16,000 votes, though she made up significant ground today. The key is that there are likely 100,000 or more votes outstanding. Those are overwhelmingly mail votes from the two big urban counties, a bucket of votes Cortez Masto has been winning by a two-thirds margin. If those vote totals are roughly accurate and something in the neighborhood of that percentage holds up she should cut right through Laxalt’s lead in the next few days.

It’s not a certainty but it’s getting close.

Rep. Lauren Boebert has been behind since votes started being counted last night. Over the course of today it appeared that she was most likely to eke out a victory by the smallest of margins. She was behind by a few thousand votes but the remaining votes seemed to favor her. Her margin got down to just over 60 votes. (It’s currently at 73.) But as of a short while ago those votes from Boebert-friendly areas are now tapped out and the much smaller number of remaining votes, according to an analysis Channel 9 in Denver, now come from counties where challenger Adam Frisch holds strong leads. They’re not quite calling it yet. But the math makes it seem inevitable.

On the contrary, “I’ve Seen Enough” Cook Report election analyst Dave Wasserman says reports of Boebert’s demise are premature.

Democratic strategists Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonier were the two most prominent voices telling us for weeks that the 2022 Red Wave was a mirage. They were right. This afternoon at 2:30 PM eastern Rosenberg and Bonier will join us for a live TPM Newsmaker briefing to discuss just what they saw in the polls and early voting patterns that allowed them to see what others missed. If you’re a TPM member you’re invited to join me and TPM’s Kate Riga. There will be an email in your inbox with instructions on how to join us live at 2:30 PM eastern to answer your questions.

3:44 AM: Okay, folks. I think that’s all I’ve got for tonight/this morning. Team did a great job. Hope you feel we had you covered. More tomorrow.

3:38 AM: Again, more details tomorrow. But Democrats seem to have performed pretty well in those Texas border districts that were such a question in 2020.

3:31 AM: Just to close the loop on this. Very, very likely that Georgia Senate goes to a runoff. And still a very real possibility that determines the majority.

3:19 AM: I mentioned yesterday that the polls are your pilot’s instrument panel. There was some non-trivial polling error understating Democratic strength. The bigger story though is that the polls were fairly on the mark. It was the campaign narrative that was off. There are a few cases like New Hampshire where polls seriously underestimated Democratic strength. But in most cases it’s hard to find results where you can say wow the polls totally missed that one. There was simply an assumption that a lot of the close races where going to go the GOP way and that didn’t happen.

3:08 AM: This is about as rough a night as one could imagine for Donald Trump. The candidates he forced on the GOP did quite poorly. Meanwhile Ron DeSantis, his biggest rival in the GOP, had an absolutely stomping night. He won a huge victory, did great in South Florida, with Hispanic voters, etc. Lots of people are predicting you’re now going to have governors like DeSantis, Youngkin, Abbott making the argument that it’s time to move past Donald Trump. Notably, it’s move past Donald Trump, not Trumpism. I suspect this is much, much easier said than done. I doubt Donald Trump is receptive to this new plan.

3:01 AM: I’m too bleary to get into all the details. But Democrats are doing well in a number of key state legislatures – Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania. I need to dig deeper tomorrow. And there will likely be more clarity then. But there’s a story there.

2:58 AM: Looks like Rep. Elissa Slotkin is going to hold on for the win in Michigan’s 7th district. Another big hold for the Democrats.

2:26 AM: Democrats have taken control of the Michigan senate for the first time since 1983. This is a big deal for many reasons – but a key one is no independent state legislature nonsense going into 2024.

1:44 AM: Note to self: write a post tomorrow about McCarthy’s leadership skills and how he’s positioned himself within the House GOP caucus.