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.
