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.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Still In Limbo
As of Thursday morning, it’s still too early to tell which party will control the Senate and House after the widely expected “red wave” turned out to be more of a pink dribble.
Control of the Senate is now down to three key races that haven’t been called yet:
Sen. Mark Kelly (D) vs. Republican Blake Masters in Arizona.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) vs. Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia. Warnock and Walker are headed to a runoff that’ll be held on Dec. 6.
The Alaska Senate race between Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) and Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka hasn’t been called yet either, but that seat’s staying red either way since both candidates are Republicans.
The House is also up in the air (dozens of close races still haven’t been called), and if Republicans do win back the chamber, they’ll have a much slimmer majority than they’d hoped for.
Boebert’s Thiiiiis Close To Being Unemployed
Colorado is very, very close to giving far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) the boot in her race against Democrat Adam Frisch, who currently has a paper-thin lead of 64 votes over the congresswoman.
Lauren Boebert’s husband solemnly exposing himself to an empty event space
Trailing behind her opponent, Lauren Boebert pled “the blood of Jesus over our elections” and prayed for “a hedge of protection” while wrapping up her election results party.
As grim as a post-Roe reality is, reproductive rights advocates got some big wins to soften the blow in the midterms, where California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont all had abortion rights on the ballot.
California, Michigan (!), and Vermontall voted to enshrine the right to an abortion in their state constitutions.
Kentucky (!!)rejected a constitutional amendment that would say explicitly that Kentuckians don’t have a right to abortion care.
Montanarejected a legislative measure that would create criminal penalties for health care providers who don’t take actions that are “medically appropriate and reasonable” to save an infant who is born alive, including if the infant was born after an attempted abortion.
A little after midnight, one video showed a few dozen remaining Mastriano supporters, many sullenly sitting in chairs, as the DJ played “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley.
“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down,” Astley sang as the disco lights circled above people’s heads. “Never gonna run around and desert you.”
🎶Morning Memo Radio🎶
I haven’t done one of these in a while:
Elon Musk Unleashes Chaos With Paid Blue Check Scheme
Faced with fleeing advertisers, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is trying to pay for his $44 billion Twitter purchase by implementing a new “feature” in which any user can pay $8 a month to get a blue check that was previously available only for verified public figures, members of the media, brands, etc.
Cue the most obvious possible result of Musk’s gambit:
"Making people pay $8 will cut down on spammers, scammers, and impersonation" pic.twitter.com/o4RHAT8Cge
This fake twitter account is impersonating twitter corporate with a newly purchased check mark and gotten 34k rts. This is going great so far. How long before having a check mark will just be a hallmark of scamming? pic.twitter.com/RV3ARb91J7
Fox News personality Jesse Watters had some trouble coming to terms with Democrat John Fetterman defeating celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz for a Pennsylvania Senate seat:
Watters: I can’t believe John Fetterman won! I can’t believe it! I honestly can’t believe they voted for this guy! pic.twitter.com/DxyHKpvT3F
Given that this is will be my last time writing Morning Memo, I’d like to ask for something from you, dear readers, before I sign off: Please post pics of your cats (or your friends’ cats or literally any cats) in the comments. Bonus points if the kitty is in loaf form (arguably the most delightful shape a cat can take).
Here, I’ll get the ball rolling with my own cat, Waffles:
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.
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.
One thing quickly became clear last night: Republicans are not seeing the sweeping wave of victories that the party was hoping to secure. The GOP is still favored to win the House — but the margins of control at this point look likely to be smaller than they might have been. Democrats, meanwhile, still have a clear path to winning control of the Senate.
While Republicans entered the night with historical precedent and weeks of red wave projections firmly on their side, Democrats hit the hay in the wee hours of Wednesday morning tentatively cheers-ing their success in fending off a bloodbath.
But the President’s party’s ability to resist historical patterns for midterms, potentially ensuring that Republicans hold a slimmer-than-expected majority in the House, was not all that surprised us last night.
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.
With about 75 percent of the vote in, Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) leads with 47 percent of the vote in the ranked choice contest for Alaska’s sole congressional seat.
