I did a Facebook overload last night. Maybe not the best way to blog an election. I will make these closing observations. After this post, Im going to go dark on FB for a week--Ill be doing some traveling for some of the time Im off. This was the strangest election I can remember. The Republicans won for the same reason I still identify with them: Because theyre not the Democrats. The GOP won this election not on their merits but because people were fed up with the Democrats. If the Republicans offered something of merit that appealed to a broad cross-section of the country, they might have really cleaned the Democrats clock. As it was, this was historic. Assuming the margin in Alaska holds and the GOP wins the Senate runoff in Louisiana next month as appears likely, they gained 9 seats and defeated 5 D Senate incumbents. The last time they beat more than 2 in an election was in 1980. Democrats are leading in all 4 razor thin undeclared gubernatorial contests. If this holds, they avoided, barely, reaching a new nadir. You only have to go back 20 years to find them that low. But in the U.S. House, you have to go back to the 1920s to find an election where the Republicans elected this many members (249). At the moment, the gain appears to be 15 seats. And this Republican dominance extends to the state legislatures. If the numbers hold, the Democrats will control 29 of the 98 partisan legislative chambers to the Republicans 68 (one tie). You might have to go back to Reconstruction to find that level of dominance. Republicans did fairly well in Washington. They took outright control of the Senate for the first time in 12 years and appear likely to pick up 3-5 seats in the House which puts them within a few seats of taking control of that chamber. They also ran competitive races for 2 U.S. House seats. In blue Washington, Republicans are at near parity. In my home county, the internal struggles in the local GOP have taken their toll. The passage of the new charter indicates some dissatisfaction with the Republican-dominated county government. I struggled with that choice--firmly believing we need a new form of government, but not much liking this particular charter. Some of the controversies may have been a drag on local GOP candidates--but not much. Lynda Wilson appears to be winning after all and Jeanne Stewart needs to win the usually much more Republican late votes by 5% to overtake her opponent. Back next week.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 15:13:12 +0000
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