There is nothing the Wrong-Wingers hate more than empathy. Inequality is to them the highest social good, as it is to all full-on authoritarians. Empathy includes wokeness, real history, and wanting the best of everything for everybody, even for those who would refuse it all because Those People/the rest of us will at last start to get their/our fair share.
Have I mentioned that before? Well, repetition is good, and more repetition is better.
Empathy was on the ballot on Tuesday, along with Democracy, motherhood, equality, and truth. Apple pie is apparently still OK.
Wrong-Wing politicians do, of course, understand the fears, rages, and hatreds of their followers. They just don’t care about them except as a means to wealth, power, and sex. Neither the leaders nor the followers care about their own well-being, much less anyone else’s, or the consequences of all of this karma.
Elections
We made gains in the Senate, governorships, State Houses, school boards, and abortion referenda. Our opponents made gains in nano-music.
Democrats overperformed at every level, including taking over state legislatures, and breaking R supermajorities. We certainly didn’t get everything on our wish list, but you never do. More next time.
Voters in Wisconsin, our most gerrymandered state, easily re-elected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, but only barely turned away the legislature getting veto-proof R supermajorities.
Deniers Conceding
These election deniers conceded that they lost.
- Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania conceded to John Fetterman in their Senate race.
- Michigan Governor candidate Tudor Dixon conceded to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
- NY Governor candidate Lee Zeldin conceded to Gov. Kathy Hochul.
- MI AG candidate Matt DePerno conceded to Dana Nessel.
- NH Senate candidate Don Bolduc conceded that he lost to Maggie Hassan, but insists he wasn’t conceding to her, only to his voters.
Baby steps, away from the Magic Dumpster Fire.
Control of the House and Senate
Undecided.
Senate
There are three undecided Senate races, AZ, NV, and GA. Our chances are excellent in all three, which would increase the Democratic majority to 51-49.
It has been noted that if we win AZ and NV now, we will have control of the Senate, and there will be no motivation for the less hate-filled, less hypocritical Rs to vote for Herschel Walker in the GA runoff on 12/6. Note that early voting there will start on November 28.
Postcarders: On your marks!
Our best current hope is for 51 Democratic and allied Senators in January. Manchin and Sinema will not be irrelevant, but their positions will be greatly weakened.
House
There are significant numbers of undecided House races. The NBC News model says the most likely outcome is Rs with 222±9 seats. IOW, nobody knows. In 2018, it took days for the Blue Wave to become apparent. But so far, Democrats have been overperforming in districts that TFG previously won.
But Nate Silver is questioning his own model, because the polling is clearly so far off this year.
The 3 Big Questions I Still Have About Election Day
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Will the polls be systematically wrong? [Yes, they were.]
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How big will the turnout gap be? [It was huge.]
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How much does candidate quality matter? [That depends.]
If Rs get to control the House there are expected to be challenges to Kevin McCarthy for the Speakership, It has been noted that whoever might get the job would be facing worse internal challenges than John Boehner and Paul Ryan, who were driven out by the infighting.
Rick Scott planned to challenge Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader in he Senate, but that’s off.
Lauren Boebert was reportedly 73 votes behind Frisch in Colorado, with a batch of early votes to come in.
OK, that’s where we were yesterday before these new batches of votes came in. We were hoping that there would be big data dumps from critical states last night, but no such luck. So this is where we still are.
Arizona
Governor—D Hobbs 50.2%, R Lake 49.8%
Senator—D Kelly 51.4%, R Masters 46.4%
Nevada
Governor—D Sisolak 45.8%, R Lombardo 50.6%
Senator—D Cortez Masto, 47.5%, R Laxalt 49.6%
Not much chance of Sisolak gaining that much ground, but it hasn’t been ruled out.
Georgia
Governor—Kemp won
Senator—D Warnock 49.2%, R Walker 48.7%→runoff
Wackadoodletude
Normal Mostly Good News
With some bad news that we are turning around.
Ah, yes. Very understated British sarcasm.
Animals! JWST! Weirdness!
Funny or Cry
Another Ferengi Rule of Acquisition?