Technically the election still isn't over as a few states are still counting ballots. Here are the results as we know them:
Senate: 50 Democrats (Biden's Party) 49 Republicans (Trump's Party) 1 seat (Georgia) undecided
House: Right now the Republicans have won 217 seats. They need 218 to regain control of the House. There are several races that are still undecided. When all is said and done, I am guessing Republicans will gain the House by a margin of about 220-215, possibly less. Interestingly enough, these numbers are almost exactly what I predicted if there was no clear "wave" election.
Republicans thought they were going to re-take the Senate and win the House by at least 30 seats and most pundits agreed. They were totally wrong. So, what happened?
10. There was no "red wave" (Red = Republicans; Blue = Democrats)
It seems that large majorities will be difficult for either party to achieve in the future. The U.S. is so deeply divided that it's most likely that all future elections will be extremely close. Another lesson is that the pundits and political journalists who almost universally predicted a red wave were all wrong. Polling has become fairly unreliable and it's becoming increasingly difficult to predict what might happen in U.S. elections.
9. Trump's election-denying extreme candidates were rejected
In most states, extreme candidates who denied that Biden won the 2020 election, didn't do very well. More moderate Republicans tended to win their races, while extremists supported by Trump lost a high percentage of races.
8. Trump fatigue might be setting in
Even some of Trump's strongest supporters are getting sick of his harsh tone and his griping about the 2020 election. Exit polls showed that a growing percentage of Republicans are becoming tired of his routine.
7. Florida is no longer a "Battleground" State
For the past half-century, Florida was considered a Battleground State, meaning that the Republican and Democratic candidates had an equal chance of winning an election there. Consider the fact that Obama the Democrat won Florida in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. No more. Republican candidates won the state by a giant margin this year and I think we can safely say Florida is no longer competitive. Now I won't feel quite as bad when Florida is overcome by climate change and sinks into the ocean.
6. Ron DeSantis has become Trump's chief Republican competitor in the 2024 Presidential Election
DeSantis won his race for Governor by an unexpectedly large margin and the most-recent opinion polls are showing that more Republicans are supporting him over Trump for 2024. You can tell he's perceived by Trump as a serious threat because last week Trump said that "DeSantis better not run for President because he will get hurt." Hmmm. Bullies like Trump say horrible things like that when they are afraid.
5. Trump is getting much of the blame
Usually Republicans don't speak out against Trump, but many prominent Republican leaders publicly placed the blame for the Republicans' unexpectedly poor showing squarely on him, especially for backing candidates whose only qualification seemed to be loyalty to Trump. The fact that we are finally hearing discordant notes about Trump from inside his own party suggests his hold on power might be weakening slightly.
4. Democrats losing the House might not be so bad
Again, it appears that the Democrats might lose the House by an extremely small margin. That might not be so bad. Because the margin is so small, one can envision the extremist MAGA members of the House, holding legislation hostage demanding that their own extremist agenda be followed instead. Already there's terrible infighting within the Republican membership and voters may become very frustrated with their antics, such as their anticipated impeachment of Joe Biden (not for any good reason, but just because they hate Democrats). It's possible that the probable Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy won't get enough Republican votes to become Speaker, causing great chaos. It's going to be madness and many Americans are getting tired of the madness as the election results demonstrated and might hold the Republicans responsible for the upcoming chaos and madness.
3. The Georgia Senate Election is still important
No candidate received 50% of the vote in the election, so there will be another election between the two major Senate candidates in Georgia (Warnock the Democrat and Walker the Republican). Even though the Democrats have retained control of the Senate with 50 votes, if the Democrat wins the runoff election in December, then the party will have 51 votes and won't have to worry about Democrats like Joe Manchin who in the previous two years, held the party hostage by saying he would vote with Republicans on issues like Climate Change if he didn't get what he wanted in the legislation. Manchin is from a coal producing state, so he resisted all attempts to limit coal production, for example. If Warnock wins, then maybe the Democrats won't have to deal with this clown in their midst.
2. Average people can make a difference
In Washington's 3rd District, the Democrat, Marie Gluesankamp Perez, was running against an extreme Trumpist named Joe Kent. The National Democratic Committee didn't think she had any chance to win, so they didn't help her with any of their national campaign funds. But, Washingtonians like me knew better and tens of thousands of us helped her campaign. I made five donations over the past five months and all of us small donors together donated over $3,000,000 to her campaign, enough for her to buy TV advertisements, without which she would have had no chance of winning. The so-called "National Political Experts" like fivethirtyeight.com gave her only a 2% chance of winning. However, those of us who know the 3rd District knew better. Guess what: she won the race by 4,000 votes. No powerful interests helped her, just us regular citizens. Though the U.S. political system is usually controlled by the rich and powerful, sometimes citizen efforts (she also had a large army of citizens helping her reach out to voters) still work. I made small donations to about 40 different candidates and more than half of them won! Sometimes there is hope.
1. The future is uncertain
The 2022 Election turned out to be better than most people expected. It showed that Trumpian extremism might just have reached its limit. But we must not be complacent, as the enemies of democracy are always plotting new strategies and we must continuing working to preserve all that is good and right, because the storm is not over. It just subsided for a short while.
One additional note to add: the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, motivated a large group of young and female voters who traditionally don't vote in high numbers in non-Presidential elections. These extra voters who voted Democratic to help protect abortion rights, also made a difference in neutralizing a potential "red wave" the preliminary data seems to suggest.
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