The Red Wave has turned into a red ripple, for now, with key positive outliers in Florida, where Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party won big, effectively turning Florida red for the next election cycle. Outside of Florida, Republican Ron Johnson held on to his Senate Seat in Wisconsin, but so did New Hampshire Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan.
The House is still in doubt as we write this report, with Republicans likely to gain a slim majority, while the Senate comes down to three races, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia. The Republicans need to win one to gain a razor-thin majority in the Senate. The Democrats have 48 seats, the Republicans have 50.
The Governorships currently show 22 Democratic versus 24 Republican seats, with 4 races remaining uncalled, including the Arizona Governor’s race where Republican challenger Kari Lake has pulled to within a few thousand votes of Democratic Challenger Katie Hobbs with only 75 percent of the vote reported. That race is already marred by bad voting machines and suspicious activity, all under the authority of the Democrat in the race, Katie Hobbs, the Secretary of State of Arizona.
Even as I write this, that red ripple might yet be a red wave after all, but certainly no tsunami or redpocolypse.
Here are a few key stories as covered by the MSM:
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
US Elections: Trump’s Republicans make midterm gains as counting continues – www.euronews.com
Excerpt:
Control of the US Congress hung in the balance early Wednesday, with both Republicans and Democrats notching victories in some of the most competitive races in a midterm election that centered on voter frustration over high inflation and the sudden rollback of abortion rights, with elections for Congress, Senate and state governors up for grabs.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, who is thought to be considering a possible run for the White House in 2024, won reelection after support from Donald Trump.
In Georgia, incumbent Governor Brian Kemp defeated the high profile Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, who campaigned to sign up more minority voters during the last two years. And former Trump White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders was elected as Arkansa’s first female governor.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Trump-backed Republican J.D. Vance will win Ohio Senate race – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Republican J.D. Vance will win the Ohio Senate race, CNN projects, outlasting a stronger-than-expected challenge from Democrat Tim Ryan and keeping the seat under GOP control.
Vance’s win is a boon for Republicans and a victory for former President Donald Trump, whose endorsement in the Republican primary helped Vance emerge from the contentious intraparty fight.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Kari Lake, Katie Hobbs race may flip – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake narrowed Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs’ lead as the results in one of the state’s most consequential races continued to roll in Wednesday.
Lake’s shrinking of Hobbs’ big early advantage was expected by many political observers, and it echoed the voting patterns seen in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election.
The former television news anchor carried 70% of votes cast statewide on Election Day, collapsing what once was a 14 percentage-point Hobbs lead among early voters to less than 1 percentage point as of Wednesday morning.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Stacey Abrams’s Georgia loss is ‘a punch in the gut’ for Black women – news.google.com
Excerpt:
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Herschel Walker, Raphael Warnock head to Georgia runoff – news.google.com
Excerpt:
ATLANTA — Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will meet in a Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia after neither reached the general election majority required under state law.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, wins full term as New York governor – news.google.com
Excerpt:
New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul will win a first full term in office, CNN projects, defeating Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin and making history as the first elected female governor of New York.
Hochul’s victory keeps New York Democrats on track to maintain their now nearly two-decade-old winning streak in statewide elections. A Buffalo native, Hochul took over the top job in August 2021 following the resignation of Andrew Cuomo, the three-term governor who faced impeachment amid a sexual harassment scandal. Despite being his lieutenant governor, Hochul and Cuomo were never closely aligned and she moved quickly upon taking office to clear it of his allies.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Mastriano hasn’t conceded to Shapiro in Pa. governor race – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro is thanking voters for giving him a win in Pennsylvania’s governor’s race.
But the Republican nominee, state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin) had not conceded as of late Wednesday afternoon.
Shapiro is already claiming victory by the widest margin in a Pennsylvania gubernatorial race for a non-incumbent in nearly 80 years. The Associated Press has called the race for Shapiro.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Democrat Gretchen Whitmer wins reelection for governor in Michigan – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer faced off against Republican challenger Tudor Dixon in Tuesday’s Midterm Election. She was declared winner early Wednesday.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Biden urges Republicans to work together as control of U.S. Congress unclear – news.google.com
Excerpt:
ALPHARETTA, Ga./PHOENIX, Ariz., Nov 9 (Reuters) – Control of the U.S. Senate hung in the balance on Wednesday as Republicans moved closer to securing a House majority, a day after Democrats outperformed expectations and history in U.S. midterm elections.
The Senate contests in Nevada and Arizona, where Democratic incumbents were seeking to hold off Republican challengers, were not yet called, with thousands of ballots still to be counted.
If the parties split those races, the Senate’s fate would come down to a Georgia runoff election for the second time in two years, after Edison Research projected neither Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock nor Republican Herschel Walker would reach the 50% necessary to avoid a Dec. 6 one-on-one rematch.
Republicans picked up at least 10 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, Edison Research projected. That would be three more than…
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne loses her bid for reelection against Republican Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District election – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne lost her bid for reelection against Republican state Sen. Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District.
Axne is a member of the Committees on Financial Services and Agriculture. Prior to her time in Congress, she worked for the Tribune Company, the State of Iowa, and as a small business owner with her husband.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
House Democrats’ campaigns chief loses re-election race in New York – news.google.com
Excerpt:
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of House Democrats’ campaign arm responsible for protecting vulnerable incumbents in his party, lost his re-election race to Republican Mike Lawler, NBC News projects.
Maloney conceded the race in a phone call to Lawler earlier Wednesday, a spokesperson for Maloney’s campaign said.
More than anything, Maloney’s defeat represents a symbolic victory for the GOP, particularly given that Democrats appeared to limit significant losses and dodge a “red wave” that many Republicans had predicted.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Results: Republican Eli Crane unseats Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District election – news.google.com
Excerpt:
- Explore more race results below.
- Rep. Tom O’Halleran ran against Republican Eli Crane in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District.
- The 2nd District is largely rural and encompasses the northwest corner of the state.
- The redistricting process flipped the seat from a toss-up district to one that leans Republican.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne loses her bid for reelection against Republican Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District election – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne lost her bid for reelection against Republican state Sen. Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District.
Axne is a member of the Committees on Financial Services and Agriculture. Prior to her time in Congress, she worked for the Tribune Company, the State of Iowa, and as a small business owner with her husband.
Axne was elected to the House in 2018, becoming one of the first two women from Iowa elected to the House in the nation’s history after she defeated incumbent Rep. David Young. In 2020, she…
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Raft of new North Dakota lawmakers bound for Legislature after election – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Republicans on Tuesday tightened their supermajority hold in North Dakota’s Legislature, which will see a raft of newcomers take office and a clock begin to tick on term limits.
Unofficially, the GOP grew its Senate majority to 43-4 in the general election, with Democrats losing a net three seats from an already tiny minority of seven.
The four Senate Democrats all will be from Fargo-area districts. It’s unclear how they will handle committee assignments with so small a minority.
Republicans appeared to pick up a net of two seats in the House for an 82-12 majority.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Democrats carry close governor races on abortion, democracy – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Democrats held onto a string of competitive governors’ seats in the midterm elections after making the case to voters that Republican challengers posed a threat to abortion rights and democracy in their states.
The wins by Democrats in more than half a dozen states came despite Republican efforts to blame the party in power for problems like inflation and rising crime and national headwinds that were expected to favor the GOP.
Of the 36 governors’ races being decided in Tuesday’s elections, Democrats flipped Massachusetts and Maryland, and it was too early to say Wednesday whether they could win control of the Arizona governor’s office for the first time since 2006.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
For Stefanowski, two towns define his loss to Lamont – news.google.com
Excerpt:
As Bob Stefanowksi watched the vote tallies come in on election night, he kept a close eye on two Republican bellwether towns where Gov. Ned Lamont was outperforming expectations – a sign that his second bid for governor was slipping away from him.
New Canaan, where Stefanowski won 60 percent of the vote during his 2018 run, instead went for Lamont with 52 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results. And Southington, which Stefanowski won with 58 percent of the vote to Lamont’s 36 percent four years ago, issued the Republican a much smaller victory this time around – just seven percentage points compared to 22.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
How Moderates Won the Midterms – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Who will control Congress after yesterday’s midterm elections remains unclear, but two things are certain: Moderation can pay big electoral dividends, and Donald Trump has become a liability for the Republican Party.
Yes, plenty of extremist candidates just won office. According to The New York Times, more than 200 Republican candidates who denied the results of the 2020 election or flirted with doing so secured victories on Tuesday. In many states, too few voters are queasy enough about the MAGA movement’s attacks on election integrity to keep the deniers out of office. Clearly, extremist candidates who question our democratic institutions retain some electoral viability.
But in practically every state where a more extreme Republican candidate ran alongside a more moderate one for different statewide offices, the more moderate candidate drew a higher share of the vote. For decades, “split-ticket voting” has been on the decline….
