Five full days after the November 8, 2022 mid term elections, vote counting continues throughout the country with many elections still not called and the balance of power only decided in the United Stated Senate. Vote counts continue in the United States House of Representative races and a few Governor races.
DEMOCRATS RETAIN CONTROL OF US SENATE
Democrats have retained control of the United States Senate and will hold 50 Senate seats to the Republican 49 seats with the 1 Georgia Senate race forced into a run off on December 6. The Democratic party will retain control of the Senate, no matter how next month’s Georgia runoff plays out, by virtue of vice-president Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
On November 12, CNN reported that Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, Americas first Latina Senator, was elected to her second term as United States Senator from Nevada defeating Republican Adam Laxalt. Cortez Masto is America’s first Latina senator and Adam Laxalt is a former Nevada attorney general who aided in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Laxalt also has a New Mexico connection and is the son of former New Mexico Republican Senator Pete Domenici.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/politics/catherine-cortez-masto-nevada-senate
On November 11, CNN projected Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was elected in 2020 to fill the term of the late Republican Senator John McCain, has won reelection. Kelly’s defeat of venture capitalist Blake Masters, who had echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, marked yet another rejection by voters of a Trump-backed candidate who Democrats portrayed as an extremist.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/11/politics/mark-kelly-blake-masters-arizona-senate-results
GEORGIA SENATE RACE
The United States Senate race in Georgia has already been forced into a runoff between Democrat Incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Hershel Walker with neither securing 50% plus one in the general election. On November 8, Democrat Warnock secured 49.4% of the vote (1,941,515 votes) Republican Walker secured 48.5% (1,906,261 votes) of the vote and Libertarian Chase Oliver secured 2.1% (81,179) of the vote. The runoff election is schedule for December 6, 2022.
CONTROL OF THE HOUSE INCHES CLOSE TO REPBUBLICAN CONTROL
As of November 13, control of the US House of Representative remains up in the air with 21 races still uncalled. Republicans are poised to secure a slim majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives. 218 seats are needed to control the House. Democrats have won 203 seats thus far, while Republicans have won 211. Many of the uncalled House races are in California.
TRUMP TO ANNOUNCE THIRD RUN FOR PRESIDENT ON NOV. 15
It has been reported that Donald Trump, 78, will announce on Tuesday November 15 that he is running for President a third time. Trump has been hinting at running again at his rally’s saying he will make “very big announcement” on November 15.
Jason Miller, a Trump longtimre advisor, told former Trump aide Steve Bannon on his “War Room” podcast:
“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he is running for president. … It’s gonna be a very professional, very buttoned-up announcement.”
Miller said Trump told him, “there doesn’t need to be any question, of course I am running.”
DER FÜHRER TRUMP BIGGEST LOSER IN MIDTERM ELECTION
On the national level, the biggest takeaway from the November 8 general election is that there was no Republican “red waive” as was being predicted and Der Führer Trump is being deemed the biggest loser of the midterm election. Below are two news reports, followed by the links, found to be the best analysis of what happened on November 8.
HEADLINE: Trump left ‘fuming’ after at least 14 of his candidates projected to lose in midterms: Sources “This is a sinking ship,” one top Trump adviser told ABC News.
By Katherine Faulders, Olivia Rubin, John Santucci, and Will Steakin (November 9, 2022)
“At least fourteen of Donald Trump’s handpicked candidates are projected to have lost their election bids, according to an ABC News count — results that have some Trump aides concerned as the former president prepares for a “big announcement” regarding his potential 2024 presidential run.
Sources close to Trump described him as “fuming” at his Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday night as GOP candidates he had backed started to lose or underperform.
In addition, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ strong performance in Trump’s adopted home state was a wakeup call for some Trump advisers, sources said. DeSantis, seen as a potential 2024 presidential rival for Trump, easily won reelection.
“This is a sinking ship,” one top Trump adviser told ABC News. “We’re not going to beat that.”
“This was the end of the Trump era and the dawn of the DeSantis era,” a Republican operative close to the Trump orbit told ABC News. “Like every other Trump catastrophe, he did this to himself with stupid and reckless decisions.”
On his Truth Social account, Trump said Tuesday was a “GREAT EVENING.” His candidate for Senate in Ohio, J.D. Vance, was projected to have beaten Democrat Tim Ryan, and his Senate candidate in North Carolina, Ted Budd, was also projected to have won his race — with races in Arizona and Nevada yet to be called and control of the House and Senate still to be determined.
But some of Trump’s most high-profile candidates saw losses in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio.
Trump was particularly unhappy as he watched two candidates he endorsed in Pennsylvania — Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano — lose their elections. Trump had been in the state rallying for both candidates just three days earlier.
“We have tens of thousands of people here,” Trump told the Pennsylvania crowd at a rally Saturday. “If these people vote for you, Doug, and if they vote for you, Oz, you can’t lose. We can’t lose.”
In an email blast touting “unprecedented successes” that was sent out before any races had been called, Trump boasted that his political action committee had spent “$3.4 million opposing [Oz opponent] John Fetterman in Pennsylvania.”
But a day later, sources say Trump has been angry with his wife, Melania, and Fox News host Sean Hannity, for pushing Trump to endorse Oz. The former president is also blaming aides for misguiding him on some of his other endorsements.
Trump told advisers Tuesday night that he was also shocked that the Georgia race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP challenger Herschel Walker was too close to call, per sources. On Wednesday, ABC News reported that neither candidate will receive more than 50% of the vote, sending the race to a runoff on Dec. 6.
As the results came in, the phones of Trump’s top political aides began ringing off the hook — and by the end of the night only a handful of aides remained around him, sources told ABC News.
As the night progressed, Trump told top aides he wasn’t particularly interested in addressing the crowd he had gathered there, although he did end up speaking for a few minutes, telling the crowd that the numbers were “amazing” so far.
Trump announced on Monday that he planned to make a “big announcement” next week about plans for his 2024 presidential run. Some close to Trump told ABC News they hope the vague nature of the statement could give him an escape hatch should he decide not to run.
But others who have spoken with Trump say he’s unlikely to renege on his plans because he’s spent the last two years teasing a run, official announcement or not.
“Hard to back out now,” one adviser said.
Trump adviser Jason Miller told Newsmax on Wednesday that he was hoping Trump would delay his announcement until after the Dec. 6 Georgia runoff, saying, “I am advising the president to hold off until after the Georgia race.”
Trump’s former press secretary, Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany, also said she believes Trump should wait until after the runoff to announce.
When asked if Trump should campaign for Walker in Georgia, McEnany said, “I think we’ve got to make strategic calculations. Gov. DeSantis, I think he should be welcome to the state, given what happened last night. You’ve got to look at the realities on the ground.”
The link to the full unedited news article is here:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-left-fuming-14-candidates-projected-lose-midterms/story?id=92992662
HEADLINE: Candidates who backed overturning Trump loss are rebuffed
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, November 9, 2022
“Republicans made a striking decision earlier this year to nominate candidates for top statewide posts in swing states who backed overturning President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. Most of those candidates lost in the midterm election.
Doug Mastriano, who commissioned buses to take Pennsylvanians to the Jan. 6, 2021, protests in Washington failed in his bid to become that state’s governor. Kristina Karamo, a community college instructor who spread misinformation about voting on Twitter even on Election Day, was crushed by Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state.
Mathew DePerno, an attorney who filed a lawsuit spreading Trump’s election lies in Michigan in 2020, lost his bid to be that state’s attorney general. Audrey Trujillo, a political novice who cheered Trump’s defiance of the vote in 2020, was defeated for New Mexico secretary of state.
Two such races remained too close to call on Wednesday — Arizona and Nevada. And in more conservative states, from Indiana to Kansas, election conspiracy theorists still won key positions.
Many observers argued that the 2022 midterm election has shown that imperiling democracy is not politically successful.
“It turns out that trying to overturn an election is not wildly popular with the American people,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster.
That even extends to Arizona, Ayres added, where a prominent former television newscaster-turned-election-conspiracy-theorist, Kari Lake, remains in a right race for governor against Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, whose campaign has been widely panned.
“The fact that it is close with a very polished, very good Republican candidate and a very weak, very unpolished Democratic candidate tells you how much of a weight election denial is on a Republican candidate,” Ayres said.
Lies and conspiracy theories about elections burrowed deeply into the 2022 Republican field, with nearly one-third of the party’s 85 candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general embracing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.
About half of those won — almost all of them incumbents, except for candidates such as Kris Kobach, a member of Trump’s 2016 voter fraud commission who won the race for attorney general in Kansas, and Chuck Gray, a Wyoming state representative who ran unopposed for secretary of state in that heavily Republican state.
More significant are the outcomes in the six states that clinched Joe Biden’s win in 2020 and where Trump and his allies disputed his loss.
In most of those states, as in most of the country, the secretary of state is the top election official while the governor and attorney general often play key roles in voting rules and certifying election results.
In Georgia, Trump unsuccessfully backed a slate of election conspiracy theorists in the GOP primary in May, seeking revenge against incumbent Republicans who rebuffed his requests to overturn his loss.
On Tuesday, Trump lost bids to install supporters in three more of those pivotal states. In Pennsylvania, Mastriano would have had the power to appoint a secretary of state to oversee voting, but he was routed in the governors race by Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro. In Wisconsin, Trump’s pick for governor, Tim Michels, lost to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, dooming Republican dreams of disbanding or significantly overhauling the state’s bipartisan election commission.
In Michigan, Karamo and DePerno had been key players in spreading misinformation about Trump’s loss in 2020. Along with Tudor Dixon, the party’s nominee for governor who repeated Trump’s election lies, they provided a drag on the GOP ticket that contributed to Democrats capturing full control of the statehouse for the first time in decades.
In two other competitive states — Minnesota and New Mexico — GOP candidates for secretary of state who echoed Trump’s election lies lost badly, performing worse than the top of their respective tickets.
“There are more of us pro-democracy Americans who are not Democrats — who look at the Republican Party and say ‘That is not for me’ — and that was borne out last night,” said Jeff Timmers, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.
Nevada and Arizona will continue to test that idea as ballots are tallied in their close races for top statewide posts.
Nevada is where former state lawmaker Jim Marchant organized a coalition of election conspiracy theorists to run for voting posts nationwide as he himself ran for his state’s secretary of state position.
Democracy advocates were optimistic on Wednesday, especially as some Republicans conceded their losses without alleging mass fraud.
“We’re seeing a bit of a scramble for the right message” among election deniers online, said Emma Steiner, who monitors disinformation for Common Cause.
She said concessions from candidates including Dixon in Michigan and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania make “it a little more difficult for election deniers to continue.”
But even as advocates celebrated, they kept a wary eye on Arizona and Nevada and acknowledged that Trump has inflicted grave damage on the trust in democracy that helps bind the country together.
“Without a doubt, election denial is alive and well, and this is a continuing threat,” said Joanna Lydgate of States United, which has sought to publicize the danger of election conspiracy theorists. But she took solace in Tuesday’s results.
“It was a really good night for democracy,” Lydgate said.
The link to the full unedited news article is here:
CNN POLITCAL ANALYST JULIAN ZELIZER
CNN Political Analyst Julian Zelizer summed up the state election results as follows:
Democrats performed exceptionally well by historical standards on Tuesday and Biden walks away having fared better than any other President in his first midterm since George W. Bush in 2002. “It was a good day for democracy” [ President Biden] declared on Wednesday.
Democrats did extremely well in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. Many of the election deniers running for secretary of state or governor lost. Even in states where Democrats were walloped, such as in New York, there were bright spots, including Gov. Kathy Hochul’s victory over the Trump-endorsed Republican Lee Zeldin.
The outcome was a surprise to both parties. Since World War II, the party of the president has typically performed poorly in the first midterm of an administration, with an average loss of 26 seats in the House and four seats in the Senate. Under former President Donald Trump, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House in 2018. Democrats lost 63 in the House in 2010 under Barack Obama, and 52 in 1994 under Bill Clinton.
When presidential approval ratings fall to where President Biden’s numbers have been – between the high-30s and mid-40s this year – that normally spells massive defeat. See, for examples, Donald Trump (38%) in 2018, Obama (46%) in 2010, Bill Clinton (41%) in 1994. Besides Biden’s low approval rates, high inflation, turbulent financial markets, and other issues that have favored Republicans – such as concerns about crime – loomed large in most polls.
Yet the red wave so many anticipated didn’t happen. Votes are still being counted in key states and districts, but even if Republicans end up with control of one or both chambers, their majority will be extremely narrow. It’s safe to say Democrats will not face the “shellacking” they experienced in 2010.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/10/opinions/biden-midterms-underestimated-zelizer/index.html
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
There is absolutely no doubt that Democrats essentially dodge a bullet on November 8 by outperforming what national pundits were predicting which was a “red wave” and a complete and total retake of both the US House and US Senate chambers. Five days after the election, there is no decision who actually controls the United State House of Representatives. The likely final result is the United States House will be controlled by the Republicans with a 5 to 7 majority and the Senate will now be controlled by the Democrats with both chambers controlled by the slimmest majority.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN THE CLEAREST WINNER OF MIDTERMS
President Biden, despite having a 44% approval rating, emerged the clear victor having bested his predecessors Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump with his party not taking a shellacking and not losing 40 to 60 US House seats as was what the national pundits had predicted. Inflation, high gas and high food prices, spiking high housing and rental prices, spiking crime rates, the border crisis and Joe Biden’s low approval ratings ultimately did matter to voters. Biden may have low approval ratings, but that did not carry over to Democrats running for office. Democrat Congressional candidates not only campaigned on the Biden agenda but also saying our democracy was at stake as was a woman’s right to an abortion. Republicans campaigned denying that the 2020 election was stolen and then attempted to pivot on crime and the economy after the Supreme Court decision striking down a woman’s right to an abortion. What did matter to voters above all else was preserving our democracy. In the final analysis, voters decided that our democracy was far more important than their “pocket books” and more important than one man who feels he is above the law.
“TRUMPTY DUMPTY” HAD A GREAT FALL
Trump is known for coming up with nick names for his opponents. He has called Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hllary”, Barrack Obama “Cheatin Obama”, Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe”, Republican Jeb Bush “Low Energy Jeb”, Democrat Senator Richard Durbin “Dicky Durbin, Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff “Shiffty Schiff”, Democrat Representative Maxine Walters “Crazy Maxine”, Republican Senator Ted Cruz “Lyin Ted”, Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” , Republican Senator Mitch McConnell “Disloyal Sleaze Bag”, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “Evita” or “Eva Perron” , Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “Nervous Nancy”, Republican Senator Marco Rubio “Little Marco”, Independent Bernie Sanders “The Nutty Professor” just to mention a few. Trump has already come up with a nick name for Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis calling him “De Sanctimonious”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Donald_Trump
The New York Post has finally come up with a nickname for Trump that fits like a glove and should be used. The New York Post lampooned Trump with a front page character of a bloated Trump sitting on a wall calling him “Trumpty Dumpty” with the lyrics “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall –Can all the GOP’s men put the party back together again?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Donald_Trump
“Trumpty Dumpty” was clearest loser in the 2022 midterms with so many of his handpicked candidates losing and who were election deniers. Candidates for President usually announce long after midterm elections. Trump’s November 15 announcement is more likely than not designed to fend off likely federal criminal charges over taking top secret documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago home, charges stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021, and other criminal investigations in the states of Georgia for election interference and the criminal investigations by the state of New York on the Trump financial empire.
Republicans are again at yet another crossroad with “Trumpty Dumpty”, and there have been many times when the Republican Party and its congressional leaders could have cut ties with him. Simply put, the party and its elected officials are spineless and afraid to offend his base which is a political cult and that wants to see the country burn in flames. First, there was Trump’s loss in 2020, then his two impeachments, then the loss of both the Senate and House, and now the loses by his his handpicked candidates in 2022. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Ron who won reelection by a landslide, has now emerged as the biggest threat to Trump. The Republican party needs to decide if it wants to continue to pledge their loyalty and support to a self-center fascist hell bent on destroying our Democracy or to move on and away from Trump.
With any luck, Der Führer Trump will be indicted, tried and convicted and be finally brought to justice for his attempt to overthrow our government on January 6 or absconding with some of the countries most highly secret documents and hoarding them at Mar-a-Lago. No one is above the law, and Trump belongs in prison, not in the White House for another 4 years where absolute chaos was the norm on a daily basis.