Democrats defy history, but midterms still transform political reality

Democrats defy history, but midterms still transform political reality

Democrats defied history, head winds and Republican boasts a “red wave” would swamp their narrow majorities in Congress. But the Senate remains a toss-up, and the GOP is still expected to retake the House, transforming politics and policy for President Biden’s next two years.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) romped to reelection, turning the Sunshine State redder in the process, and further fueling talk he may take on former president Donald Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024. So did Georgia Gov.  Brian Kemp (R), who rejected Trump’s false claims of having been cheated out of a second term in 2020.

In fact, many high-profile candidates who amplified Trump’s debunked claims had a rough night. For instance, election denier candidates in Michigan — for governor, secretary of state and attorney general — all lost convincingly. (The relevant Washington Post tracker is here.)

The nation’s most prominent champion of nonsense claims about the 2020 election — Trump himself — didn’t have a great night, and sounds increasingly unnerved by DeSantis, my colleagues Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey reported.

There were many other outcomes that deserve scrutiny. 

• The Georgia results aren’t complete, but look at how much Kemp is outpacing the Republican Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, while Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, runs ahead of his party’s gubernatorial nominee, Stacey Abrams.
• It’s early yet, but look at the mixed bag of results from ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana for recreational use: Approved in Maryland and Missouri, rejected in North Dakota as well as Arkansas, too close to call in South Dakota.
• One of the most important questions remains just how much the Supreme Court ruling that ended federal protections of access to abortion shaped an election in which voters generally cited the economy as their top concern.
• But abortion-rights advocates won a series of decisive victories, including in red states like Kentucky — Kentucky! After Kansas! — highlighting the issue’s undeniable potency.
• To what degree did Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) do to his state what DeSantis did to his?

Let’s keep our focus on Congress. As of this writing, Republicans are favored to retake the House by a narrow margin, and the Senate is a coin-flip that could come down to a December runoff election in Georgia. Senate races in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin remain too close to call.

But even just retaking the House by a slim margin would transform politics. Biden’s legislative agenda would be expected to grind to a halt. Republicans have served notice they’ll unleash investigations into the administration and the president’s son, Hunter Biden. And some in the GOP want to pick high-risk fights over funding the government and paying the nation’s debts.

Why investigations and brinkmanship? Because the reality is Republicans won’t have the votes to drive legislation over Biden’s veto, and will likely settle on whatever course they think will put the party and its eventual presidential nominee in the best possible position come 2024.

This is more about the mechanics of power than the nebulous notion of “mandate.” GOP committee chairs will suddenly have power to set the agenda, deciding what hearings to hold and whom to summon to testify, what legislation to move forward, and what proposals to kill.

Over at The Climate 202, my colleagues Maxine Joselow and Vanessa Montalbano explain how this may “intensify oversight of the Biden administration’s climate agenda and pledging to push legislation that would increase the burning of fossil fuels, a primary driver of global warming.”

• For example: Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) could become the first woman to run the House Energy and Commerce Committee after several male chairs.
• She has told my colleagues that she wants to investigate the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which includes some of the most significant efforts to rein in the climate crisis in years.

Over at The CyberSecurity 202, my colleagues Tim Starks and Aaron Schaffer diagnose a waning interest in cybersecurity legislation as a consequence of the departure of two senior Republicans and one Democrat who had made the issue a priority.

“The GOP leaders of the House and Senate homeland security panels, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), have earned reputations as among the more moderate members in their chambers and for working with Democrats to pass cybersecurity legislation.”

“Cybersecurity is also losing another key lawmaker in Congress with the retirement of Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), a bipartisan dealmaker with longtime cyber policymaking expertise who helped some of the bigger cyber measures become law in recent years. Langevin has also helmed the cybersecurity subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.”

One big X Factor for Republicans: How united will they be?

Last year, Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy predicted a 60-seat gain for his party in the House, perhaps not coincidentally a margin that would have made him less reliant on the GOP’s fractious and growing right-wing cohort to win the Speakership.

Voters Tuesday night said: Not so much. And now questions abound about what he’ll have to do to get the top House job, and his ability to do it if he gets there.

Congress hangs in balance as Democrats defy expectations

“Control of both chambers of Congress hung in the balance Wednesday morning after Democrats showed surprising strength in key battleground races on Tuesday. Too many races remained uncalled to project which party will control the House or Senate,” John Wagner, Eugene Scott, Azi Paybarah and Amy B Wang report.

Follow along here as results continue to roll in 

Abortion rights advocates score major midterm victories across the country

“The string of abortion rights successes affirmed a political trend that emerged in August, two months after the fall of Roe, when voters in conservative Kansas rejected an antiabortion amendment similar to the one that was defeated in Kentucky. The results showed how even as GOP lawmakers have seized the moment to enact more restrictions, much of the public sees the issue differently — with about 6 in 10 midterm voters saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to exit polls,” Caroline Kitchener, Kim Bellware and Rachel Roubein report.

WNBA star Brittney Griner being transferred to Russian penal colony

“Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who has been detained in Russia since February, is being moved to a Russian penal colony — a type of prison facility known for its brutal living conditions — her legal team said Wednesday,” Victoria Bisset and Natalia Abbakumova report.

Lunchtime reads from The Post

Here are the candidates who made history in Tuesday’s midterms

“Some candidates didn’t just win on Tuesday, they also broke barriers,” Joanna Slater reports. “Those victories included the first female governors elected in Arkansas, Massachusetts and New York; the first Black person to be elected governor of Maryland; and the first member of Gen Z to be elected to Congress.”

“In some ways, this election had already made history for the diversity of candidates running. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people ran for office in all 50 states for the first time, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund. The number of such candidates on the ballot also increased 18 percent from 2020, it said, many of them galvanized by a wave of measures in Republican-led states attacking the community.”

Election deniers score big wins, but also suffer significant setbacks

“Dozens of candidates for House, Senate and state-level office who have echoed former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential race was rigged were projected to win their elections Tuesday, with scores more contests still being tallied,” Amy Gardner reports.

“But some of the most outspoken election deniers sustained defeat in races that had been seen as winnable for Republicans when the year began, including Doug Mastriano, who lost his bid for Pennsylvania governor.”

Voting goes mostly smoothly on Election Day as baseless fraud claims swirl

“State and local elections officials said Tuesday’s voting in the midterm elections went smoothly overall, with a few isolated problems reported, including in the key swing state of Arizona where issues with voting machines sparked baseless claims about fraud,” CNN’s Jeremy Herb, Eric Levenson and Fredreka Schouten report.

• “In Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous, Republicans filed a lawsuit seeking to keep polls open three hours after they were scheduled to close, claiming there were excessive delays and long lines due to ballot tabulator malfunctions. A county judge, however, denied the request.”

Slavery rejected in some, not all, states where on ballot

“Voters in three states approved ballot measures that will change their state constitutions to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime, while those in a fourth state rejected the move. The measures approved Tuesday curtail the use of prison labor in Alabama, Tennessee and Vermont. In Oregon, ‘yes’ was leading its anti-slavery ballot initiative, but the vote remained too early to call Wednesday morning,” the Associated Press’s Aaron Morrison reports.

Biden’s next 2 years: Changes afoot whatever midterms bring

“Regardless of the outcome, the votes will help reshape the remainder of Biden’s term after an ambitious first two years and will reorder his White House priorities,” the AP’s Zeke Miller reports.

“White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would address the nation on Wednesday about the results, which may take days to be finalized. The president last week appealed for Americans to be patient as votes are counted and to avoid engaging in conspiracy theories, a message he was likely to repeat Wednesday about pending returns.”

Supreme Court denies block of Biden’s forgiveness plans, so why is it still on pause?

“Student loan forgiveness is still on hold due to a challenge by six Republican-led states. The six states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina — claimed a lack of congressional authorization for the administration’s action. CNBC reported that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay and paused the program while it considers the appeal,” Yahoo Finance’s Josephine Nesbit reports.

Climate, Ukraine, China in focus as Biden prepares for upcoming foreign trip

“Biden will meet with the leaders of Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia during an upcoming trip to North Africa and Asia where he will show U.S. commitment on issues such as climate change and assert Washington’s pledge to counter China’s rising global influence,” Reuters’ Nandita Bose and Steve Holland report.

Where midterm votes are still being counted, visualized

“Counting tends to be slowest in states that make heavy use of vote-by-mail, which includes the entire West Coast. Big cities also tend to tabulate slower than rural areas — there are simply more ballots to process,” Dylan Moriarty reports.

The vaunted red wave never hit the shore in midterm elections

“In the closing days of the 2022 campaign, Republicans were in a bullish mood. They believed that after a difficult summer, the momentum of the midterm elections had swung decisively in their direction,” Dan Balz writes.

“Election night proved to be more problematic. The vaunted red wave never hit the shore.”

“Republicans remained confident that when all the results were tallied, they would control the House, though likely by a margin that would fall short of their projections. The Senate, meanwhile, was turning out as predicted, with control in the balance and a handful of seats not called and not likely to be for days.”

Trump absorbs GOP losses, while DeSantis glows with landslide victory

“Come election night … it was DeSantis holding the ebullient victory party, having won reelection in a 20-point landslide, almost 15 points better than Trump’s 2020 margin in their shared home state. At the party, DeSantis’s supporters chanted ‘Two more years!’ — encouraging the governor to seek the presidency before finishing his second term,” Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey report.

“Trump’s own watch party, by contrast, was diminished by a tropical storm barreling toward his Mar-a-Lago resort, located by Wednesday morning in a mandatory evacuation zone. Trump spoke briefly Tuesday night to thank reporters for attending, boast about his winning record of endorsements and congratulate a few Republican candidates who’d won or were leading. But not DeSantis.”

Biden does not have any public events scheduled this afternoon.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.