Re: 2018 Midterms 2: I Need A Drink!
Was there any real "stop the presses!" (do they still say that?) surprise last night?
Mid-term.
The House tends to go against the party of the President. Check.
The Senate doesn't waggle much.
Most media pundits expected a lot of R governors to flop to D (given it was 33/50 not long ago).
Maybe the "blue wall" states putting a lot of state Ds in place?
Florida?
McCaskill in MO?
Honestly, last night felt "to script" in a lot of ways.
Agree to some extent, but it was a weird election. Dems pick up House seats in....Oklahoma? Kansas?? South Carolina??? Didn't see that coming.
But to the overall point states all retreated to their partisan leans for the most part. Dems cleaned up in House races in NY, NJ, PA and VA. GOP killed it in red state Senate seats.
Biggest surprise: OK and SC house seat pickups. On nobody's radar, even in the deepest depths of daily kos or Democracy Now websites.
Biggest disappointment: Florida hands down.
Lesson for 2020: Dems won up and down the ballot in WI, MI, and PA for statewide races. That's a good sign because lose those 3 states and Chump is doomed for re-election. Florida and Ohio are disturbing however, and in FL's case the Dems need to rebuild that useless state party from the ground up because whatever they've been doing the last 20 years ain't working.
Under the radar: The war against gerrymandering just won several important battles. MI passed referendum for independent commission drawing lines. Dems retained state supreme court advantage in North Carolina, which means Pennsylvania style lawsuit to redraw lines had better be in the works.
TBD: Will be awhile before we know how many CA GOP congresscritters went down. Simena and Tester races still up in the air as well although I've read some blurbs that the outstanding vote in MT should come in mostly for Tester.
Overall I'd give his night a B, with the Florida debacle keeping it from a higher grade.