There is an idea that I'm hearing repeated. I've heard it at work. I've heard it on the radio (on NPR, but also on morning comedy-oriented radio as well as on sports talk radio). It's on TV (which I only catch in passing).
People are saying that nothing really changed. President got "barely" re-elected, Senate is still Democratic, House is still Republican.
Don't let people get away with saying that. They need to be corrected.
This was a drubbing.
The Presidential election was NOT close. The popular vote doesn't matter (even though it wasn't really close either). People don't campaign to try to win the popular vote. If they had to, then the strategies would be different. They campaign to try to win the Electoral College. This was an EC whitewashing.
Romney lost Florida. He would have still lost the election if he had won it.
Romney lost Ohio. He would still have lost the election if he had won it.
Romney lost Virginia. He would still have lost the election if he had won it.
He would still have lost the election if he had WON ALL THREE. You would need to add more than a quarter of a million Romney votes in these states (if you got to pick exactly where you added them) in order to get Romney to win. Even then you've got to pick up another state to get him to over 270 EC.
This wasn't close. It wasn't close to being close.
You have to add hundreds of thousands of votes (if you can pick exactly where they go) in order to get Rmoney over the top.
The Senate was a drubbing as well. Two months ago, it looked like the Republicans were going to take the Senate. There were twice as many Dem seats up as Rep seats. The Dems looked like they were in real trouble in some of their races. Most of the Rep seats looked pretty safe. This was an absolute shellacking. Not only did they not LOSE any seats, the Dems actually gained two. And amongst the seats that they kept, there was a movement to the left. The Senate not only contains more Democrats, the flavor of Democrat tilted left.
"The House is still Republican. Therefore nothing changed." Bollocks. Many states were effectively and ruthlessly gerrymandered. More gerrymandered against Democrats than for them. This was a playing field that wasn't level two years ago, and the Republicans did a very effective job of unbalancing it even further to their advantage. They drew a 12-4 map in Ohio, for God's sake. The GOPers still lost (about) 7 seats. They should have won seats.
Don't let people get away with saying that this election was "a wash" or that "nothing really changed". This was a repudiation of the attempt at an even further rightward lurch of the country.