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.
Continue reading “Senate Control Hinges On Handful Of States That Are Too Close To Call”America Starts To Reject Election Deniers
In the majority of swing states the GOP put forth state-level candidates who didn’t only deny the results of the 2020 elections.
Continue reading “America Starts To Reject Election Deniers”Five Things That Surprised Us On Election Night
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.
Continue reading “Five Things That Surprised Us On Election Night”Join Us at 2:30 Eastern
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.
Peltola Jumps Out To Early Lead As Counting Continues
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.
Continue reading “Peltola Jumps Out To Early Lead As Counting Continues”That Was No Red Wave, But What Was It Exactly? So Much To Parse!
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
It’s a rip-roaring, bleary-eyed, all-nighter-after-rolling-the-clocks-back, caffeine-fueled Morning Memo. Pour yourself a cup of joe and let’s goooo!
Continue reading “That Was No Red Wave, But What Was It Exactly? So Much To Parse!”Josh Really Just Operating on Fumes Now Blog
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.
Lauren Boebert Unexpectedly In The Fight Of Her Life For Reelection
Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R) reelection has gone from foregone conclusion to the fight of her life in Colorado’s third district.
Continue reading “Lauren Boebert Unexpectedly In The Fight Of Her Life For Reelection”Josh Going Totally Old School Blogging Blog #2
1:35 AM: Checked in with a few sources. Looks like Rep. Boebert probably squeaks through. But not a sure thing.
1:31 AM: It looks not impossible at this point that you have a very think GOP House majority that rests in significant measure in a series of close pick ups from New York State. That would be absurd and improbable and show the crazy repercussions of the New York State redistricting debacle. But it could also have some very weird effects in 2023. You get into a scenario where leadership needs to force inherently vulnerable Republicans to toe the Marjorie Greene/Jim Jordan line. Weird hypothetical. But at this point not that hypothetical.
12:58 AM: NBC calls the Pennsylvania Senate race for John Fetterman.
12:21 AM: It seems like there’s a real chance Lauren Boebert might lose her seat tonight (this morning, sorry.)
12:10 AM: It’s looking like it will be a very thin GOP majority in the House.
11:51 PM: A week ago I mentioned North Carolina’s Bo Hines, the Republican who was recommending community boards to review whether individual rape and/or incest victims had a rough enough situation to merit getting an abortion. Cook rated this race a GOP leaning toss up. He just conceded defeat.
11:36 PM: Nathaniel Rakich of 538 makes the very good point that while Tim Ryan went down to defeat against the odious weasel JD Vance his campaign probably played a key role in down-ballot D wins in the House.
Josh Going Totally Old School Blogging Blog
11:17 PM: Over the last couple weeks I’ve noted many times that we would not only have political winners and losers tonight but also pollster winners and losers. And well, we have ’em. The mainstream pollsters’ numbers look pretty solid. The numbers from GOP pollsters like Trafalgar, Insider Advantage, Rasmussen, etc. are taking it on the chin pretty hard. But it goes beyond differences of methodology. There was always a strong assumption from a lot of knowledgable people that those outfits had shoddy verging on bogus polling practices. So you take the mainstream number, tack on 5 points and that’s your poll. If there’s a major polling error for most pollsters you look pretty smart. But it’s sort of like a broken clock being right twice a day. Like I said, many thought this. But they’d gotten closer to the mark in 2016 and 2020. So it was hard to make the argument too confidently.
11:09 PM: Earlier in the evening I mentioned those three Virginia House seat bellwethers. We now have results in each. Luria, the most vulnerable, has conceded defeat. The other two held their seats. In advance this result seemed to presage Republicans winning the House but by a slender margin. And that’s where we seem to be.
10:57 PM: A huge bummer but not unexpected. NBC calls Ohio for JD Vance.
10:48 PM: Don’t want to assume anything else. But Lauren Boebert seems to have a race on her hands.
10:39 PM: I’ve been cautious about this. But The New York Times’ Nate Cohn has been looking at county totals in Pennsylvania and Fetterman is beating Biden’s 2020 numbers basically everywhere. This looks like a pretty strong signal in the noise. We need to see a lot more. But that’s pretty telling.
10:34 PM: NBC calls Virginia’s 7th district for Abigail Spanberger. [10:43 PM: Now AP too. This one’s done.]
10:28 PM: I think we can say with some confidence now that this is not a GOP wave election. But it’s still true that the GOP did not need a wave to win the House or even the Senate. We know a lot more about the outlines of this than we knew a few hours ago.
10:13 PM: To make the point more directly, I’m literally not looking at statewide totals in really any race. Or barely any. Sort of impossible for me to have any idea what they mean. Almost entirely looking at completed or near completed counties. And to be clear, look at what analysts I trust say about them. That’s when you can make comparisons.
10:08 PM: Possibly some encouraging signs for Fetterman in Pennsylvania. Will need to see more. Very early.
10:00 PM: Looking increasingly likely that Rep. Abigail Spanberger will hold on for reelection in Virginia 7. Not a shocker by any means but definitely a bellwether.
9:46 PM: Veteran Dem Rep Marcy Kaptur was supposed to be in some danger. Not likely to lose but in danger in a red wave. Ryan Brune now thinks she’ll win by double digits. It’s not a huge thing that Kaptur is reelected. But if she’s reelected comfortably that’s another result that puts some real bounds on the scale of Republican victories.