No two ways about it – a big, big night for the GOP. We won’t know the outcome in Louisiana until December. But it’s now looking likely that the GOP will end up with a 54 – 46 seat majority in the next Congress. We still haven’t heard from Alaska. And we can’t totally count Landrieu out. But this is close to a maximal win for the Republicans.
It now seems clear that Warner will hold on in Virginia – which of course wasn’t even supposed to be remotely close. The big surprise for me tonight is Hagan – the polls, the quality of the race she ran, it really seemed to me that she was going to win. Hagan going down is about what should have been a winning campaign simply not being strong enough to overcome the national tide. Sen. Roberts’ win is basically the reverse of that.
Even after last night’s results, Nate Silver still seems to have the last months’ criticism and second-guessing a bit under his skin.
Mitch McConnell says there won’t be any government shutdowns on his watch. But how is he going to get leader Majority Leader Cruz to go along with that?
National Review warns GOP: Don’t be fooled, actually ‘governing’ is a Democratic trap.
Luke Russert says Joni Ernst is the “kingmaker”, maybe even the future of the GOP. Watch.
“To prevent Obama from becoming the hero who fixed Washington, McConnell decided to break it. And it worked.” That’s from Matt Yglesias in a post he published yesterday evening before the scope of the GOP victory became fully clear. This is succinct and it is correct.
Indeed, in key respects it worked in 2010. By many measures Republicans should have won the Senate in 2010 and 2012. But each year they were hobbled by a raft of crazy and indisciplined senate candidates who squandered what should have been easy or at least odds-on wins. This year, the terrain was heavily weighted in their favor. And they kept their candidates on the straight and narrow.
But if this was the plan (and it was) and if it worked (which it did) we should ask, why?
Before the great era of bipartisan cooperation breaks out, there’s this epic confrontation over Obama breaking the logjam on immigration by executive order.
For you old folks, no I’m not becoming a doctor. But join me tomorrow for my AMA at Reddit at 1pm eastern tomorrow. Ask me anything – about the midterms, about the midterms and even about the midterms. Actually, you really can ask me anything. And please, someone ask me about something other than the midterms.
Republican tells C-Span’s Washington Journal “the Republicans hate that ni–er Obama” after saying that Republicans “please do not overreach” (a bit counterintuitive?). Watch.