A call on who will lead the House of Representatives has yet to be made, and it’s the Monday after the election on Tuesday. In spite of a potential victory by Herschel Walker in the Georgia runoff on December 6th, the Senate will stay in Democratic control, as was decided over the weekend. In the Senate, every incumbent candidate won reelection, with the closest race going to Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, who narrowly defeated Republican Adam Laxalt. The Republicans wiped out their challengers. In spite of the over $1 billion spent on Senate races this season, if Walker bucks the trend early next month, the upper House will be evenly split. If Senator Raphael Warnock wins in Pennsylvania, the Democrats will gain one net seat. The worst possible outcome for the GOP in 2022 occurred, but the Senate map in 2024 is quite favorable toward them. The Republican Party should use last week as a warning not to assume anything.
Also, the chances of Democrats gaining two governorships this election cycle are growing. They retook the blue states of Massachusetts and Maryland with little effort, as boilerplate Democratic politicians crushed ‘MAGA’ GOP rivals in both states. Arizona is dangerously close to electing a Democrat as governor, which would cement the state’s new makeup as a purplish-blue state, given that Democrats have won the state’s most recent presidential, gubernatorial, and US Senate elections. The top two Republican candidates in the state that year (Masters and Lake) finished far lower than the number of Republican members of Congress in the state. The typical Republican candidate for state treasurer is winning well across the board. In spite of recent ballot dumps, Kari Lake still has a chance to win (if you missed my nonpartisan rant about the insane way some of these states conduct their elections and count their votes, feel free to go back and read it). With the defeat of Nevada’s Democratic governor, the Republicans gained control of the state legislature. It is the only state where an incumbent governor or senator has been defeated this election cycle. As for Warnock and Senator Lisa Murkowski, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Now let’s talk about the House of Representatives, where the GOP’s prospects are much better. Not terrific, to be sure; the GOP leadership was hoping for an early win statement on election night rather than a string of close races. Let’s start with the bad news before we get to what seems like the good news for Republicans. In Washington State, a popular incumbent (who won by double digits in 2020) lost in the primary owing to her vote to impeach Trump, and her MAGA-supported opponent has now lost the R+13 District to a Democrat. In Alaska, the new “ranked choice” voting method has helped the Democrats win since Sarah Palin and another Republican have divided the state’s Republican vote. Just to name a few, they are cases when opportunities were lost that could have been taken advantage of. Republicans have again been completely shut out in New England House contests, despite fielding some good (and some not-so-great) candidates.
House Republicans look to be on course to win back the majority and take the gavel away from Nancy Pelosi, despite missing several gimmes and a much better than predicted night for Democrats overall. Dave Wasserman, surveying the remaining contests, has concluded that the Democrats need a “miracle” to win, as their window of opportunity is fast shrinking. In the absence of a major political earthquake, the House of Representatives lower chamber should be turning red in the near future:
Republicans appear to have secured New York’s 22nd Congressional District, which would imply that “Dems lost *five* NY seats that went for Biden by more than the national result in ’20 – including two that voted for Biden by double digits,” as stated by Wasserman. His follow-up comment was, “You can’t really blame that on lousy redistricting.” It incorporates the four advancements we discussed last week. Representative Lauren Boebert’s fiery campaign nearly cost her a Colorado district that was intended to be more Republican, but she is holding on to a slim advantage, maybe in anticipation of a recount. It would appear that Republicans in California are able to maintain their leads in the state’s most crucial elections. The good news is that as of this morning, Republicans are ahead in both of the races that Wasserman considers to be toss-ups. However, the state’s ridiculous and time-consuming method of tallying votes means that neither tally is anywhere near completion. Only 61% of the votes needed have been recorded in the 13th District. The percentage is 53% on the 22nd. And yet again, the election was over a week ago. Taking the big picture into account, this is something to think about:
When ballots from the West Coast are counted, the House GOP, so I’ve read, will have won the national “popular” vote (not a real or useful indicator) by around four percentage points, having garnered millions more votes than the Democrats did. However, as Wasserman explains, this won’t amount to much of a majority for a variety of reasons. We get to listen to rants about how “undemocratic” and “anti-majoritarian” the system is when it damages Democrats in this way. Many on the political left have strong feelings toward the US Senate and the electoral college. In light of the current situation, you shouldn’t expect any more jeremiads of the same sort. By the way, before the election, I would have almost certainly guaranteed a red wave if you had told me merely that the national House ‘popular’ vote would settle around R+4. Now, look at us. I’ll end by responding to the argument that the GOP’s small and ineffective majority in the House isn’t worth fixing. But I must disagree: