I have in recent cycles spent the afternoon and evening of the election at the bar of the National Democratic Club next to the National Democratic Committee on the House side of the Hill. I am there with my computer, which allows to me to look inside returns for individual races that might not be on television, and/or to look at performance by jurisdictions within a constituency to evaluate performance against benchmarks/targets. I have been at the DNC sine 2008. In 2006 I was at the Webb celebration, and was puzzled by why there were three “precincts” for absentees until someone reminded me that Fairfax County was divided among three Congressional Districts. I did the math in my head, and knowing what those numbers represented, and what was out in Richmond City, and knew Webb would win by at least 7-8,000 votes, so I closed up my computer and went home (and Allen did not concede for several days).
This past Tuesday I did have that choice. I have been fighting a bad cold since last Friday,and by 9 PM I was really fading. I knew we had one the 10th CD in VIrginia,and the numbers looked favorable for both the 7th and the 2nd (and we did win both), and not that favorable for the 5th (we lost). I was simply too sick, needed to be near a bathroom because of a sinus problem. Thus I was not in the Club as the numbers overall began to turn ever more Blue, and missed that joy.
Now, with several days to digest the still-evolving results, I have a variety of responses.
OVerall, I think it was a very good night for our side.
We will suffer in Court appointments because of Republican control of the Senate.
And I worry about what might be tried in the forthcoming lame duck.
Below the break I will go through all of that.
We will wind up with something like 35-40 net gain in the House. I had predicted 40 early Tuesday,and I accept we may fall a bit short. Still, that is for Democrats our largest gain in a cycle since 1974. I suspect absent extreme gerrymandering we might well have hit 50 given that our final percentage margin in the House vote is likely to approach 9% when all of Florida, AZ, OR, WA, and CA are accounted for.
I expect we will win AZ Senate. Not sure on FL Senate. I ignore the large margins in votes between the parties because remember that ALL the votes in CA Senate were for Democrats. Here are what I think are the biggest takeaways.
MT — Tester won his seat in the offyear of 2006 by about 3K votes,the closest race that year. Despite heavy targeting by Trump (4 visits), his margin this offyear is more than 3X as much.
ND — the Republican attempts to suppress the Native American vote backfired — it was up, and the author of the bill in question lost his seat — to a Native American!. Yes, Heidi lost, but it was not because of suppression of Native-American vote.
Initiatives — look how many progressive proposals got passed -on minimum wage, on medical marijuana, on restoration of voting rights, on ending gerrymandering.
Take the Florida restoration of voting rights. That in theory makes up 1o 1.5 million people eligible to vote. Dems/Progressives should get lists of all affected, reach out to them, and get them registered. Potentially we can add enough D voters to mean that Rs do not win another statewide election and we won’t again have to worry about close races and recounts.
Then we can move to state level. We will now hold the governor’s mansions in WI, MI, and PA. The first two were in Republican hands in 2016, and those were the states that put Trump over the top.
Take those 4 states and OH and with Senate and Governor races in all 4, we went 7 for 8, with only the WI Governor’s race (against a 2-time incumbent) was a close win.
When all is said and done, we may well have picked up close to 400 state legislative seats, starting to rectify the losses of the past few cycles We have gained total control in some states, apparently supermajorities in OR, solid majorities in NV, ended the Republican supermajorities in NC in at least one of the two chambers.
At a local level, take a look especially at Texas, where Republicans got wiped out in Houston and Dallas.
At a personal level, a few years ago (2008) I participated in a political leadership program through the University of Virginia. One classmate, Sarah Godlewsky, was elected Treasurer in Wisconsin. Another, Dom Gabiello, managed Michele Lujan Grisham’s gubernatorial win in NM,and is managing her transition. A third, Joe Walton, was the Libertarian candidate in the 7th Congressional District, helping draw votes from Brat (although less than Spanberger’s winning margin).
Unfortunately,my college classmate Scott Wallace fell somewhat short in 1st CD in Pennsylvania.
I was delighted to see former social studies teacher Tim Walz get elected governor in MN — I met him at a celebration put together by people like former Congressman Brad Miller and our own Chris Bowers, among others, and was quite impressed with him.
I was similarly delighted to see the diversity of Democrats elected at various levels — that continues what we saw in House of Delegates races here in Virginia last year.
But there are things that worry me.
We are seeing Republican state legislatures talking about gutting the power of Governor’s offices to which Dems have just been elected — even though the NC legislature has failed on a couple of such attempts
I don’t worry about “repeal and replace” either in the lame duck or in the next Congress In the latter, a Democratic House prevents that from happening. As far as the lame duck? The last time it came up in a 52-48 R Senate, three Republicans (Murkowski, Collins, and McCain) voted it down. McCain might have been replaced by Kyl, but Luther Strange has been replaced by Doug Jones — there should still be those 51 votes against. Even more, some Republicans up in2020 have already told McConnell they do not want to have to vote on it, and he has admitted it is probably dead.
But consider this — under current provisions of law Ways and Means can demand Trump’s tax returns from the IRS. CURRENT PROVISIONS OF LAW. I wonder if Trump supporters might try to eradicate any such provisions that exist while they still control the House. For now McConnell has refused to blow up the legislative filbuster, but what if such repeal gets folded into a must-pass piece of legislation, for example, keeping the government open. I would not put it pass the Republicans to do that to try to put Dems in a bind.
I have no idea how the current Trump shenanigans will play out with respect to the Mueller probe. I am quite sure that gentleman has wargamed all the possibilities, and would not try to outthink him. I do think any attempt to shut Mueller down will (a) never be completely successful; (b) most of the information will eventually become public; c) blow up big time on Trump & the Republicans. I will watch, and comment when I think I have something to offer that is not otherwise being offered.
I knew by 10 PM last Tuesday it would be a good night, because I am a political junkie, don’t get easily spun, and understand things like when ballots come in, etc. As the days have passed, I think the picture has actually improved.
Yes, I am disappointed about where we are in FL and GA, but will wait to see how it plays out with court battles, continued counts, and recounts going forward.
Now if we Democrats can simply avoid eating our own in things like elections of House leadership,and the positioning of people for 2020, we might actually have some political sunshine.
That’s at least a few of my thoughts.
Make of it what you will.