Dem
54
Ties
2
GOP
44
There are a lot of notably election-related developments that we did not get to on Tuesday. In some cases, that is because there was so much key national news, we weren't able to track more localized developments. In more cases, it was because the notable information wasn't known until yesterday. In any case, here's a rundown of a bunch of stuff we think is worth noting:
Throw the Bums Out, Part I: We'll start with the most important storyline, which is that voters are pissed. That means that it was not a good night to be an incumbent. Readers already know about the various senators and governors who were tossed out on the rears. When it comes to the House, numerous races are still being resolved, but 30 incumbents have already lost their seats. Of those, 29 were Republicans, while the one Democrat to be fired—Jimmy Gomez in California—lost to another Democrat. Among the Republicans who will soon be unemployed are Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Victoria Spartz, Thomas Kean Jr., Max Miller and Derrick Van Orden. At the moment, most outlets have called 253 seats for the Democrats and 157 for the Republicans, which leaves 25 still to be called. Those numbers are the result of a staggering 43 flips for the Democrats, as compared to just 3 for the Republicans.
Throw the Bums Out, Part II: Although the anti-incumbent sentiment mostly victimized Republicans, there were some Democrats caught up in its wake. For example, in the district that will soon be vacated by Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), voters preferred state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) over the Pelosi-backed City Supervisor Connie Chan
Throw the Bums Out, Part III: Nancy Pelosi is out of a job willingly, having decided to retire after a couple of terms as a backbencher. Her longtime colleague, Mayor Karen Bass (D) is about to retire non-voluntarily, as she has been defeated by Democratic Socialist Nithya Raman (D). It was neck-and-neck for a long time, but Raman eventually pulled away to win, 53% to 47%. Like many mayoral races, this one is officially nonpartisan, but everyone in town knows what the candidates are.
Throw the Bums Out, Part IV: As long as we're in the Los Angeles area, and as long as we're talking Democratic Socialists, the city of Burbank is north of downtown, and is pretty wealthy and pretty Armenian. It is not particularly lefty by L.A. standards (as compared to, say, Santa Monica or Brentwood). Still, the people of that community decided to toss their Democratic mayor out, and to elect Democratic Socialists to two of the three open seats on the five-person city council. Since the Council already had one Democratic Socialist, this means Burbank will be the first city in America to have a city council with a Democratic Socialist majority. Take that, New York City.
It Was Over Before It Began: As it turns out, there were several high-profile races that were already decided when the polls opened on Election Day. Most notably, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) got 1,772,000 early votes. His opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), got 1,712,000 total votes. So, while nobody knew this at the time, obviously, Ossoff's Election Day votes were just running up the score. The same is true in Texas and North Carolina, and may possibly prove to be true in the Arizona's governor's race. It is proof of concept that: (1) Democrats are more likely to use early voting than Republicans, and (2) the impact of last-week (or so) developments can be very muted, since a big chunk of votes are locked in. There was no late surprise in these three Senate races that might have derailed the victorious Democrat, but even if there had been, it probably wouldn't have mattered.
The Redistricting Wars: As we note above, there are still 25 seats to be called. That includes two (FL-09, LA-06) that were redrawn to favor Republicans. All the other districts that were redrawn since the last election have been called, however, and the results are: 11 Democratic holds and 2 Republicans flips in districts redrawn to favor Republicans, and 6 Democratic flips in districts redrawn to favor Democrats. Put another way, thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and the five seats he effectively stole by redrawing California's maps, the blue team has won this round of the redistricting wars. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the impetus for federal anti-gerrymandering legislation, so we can put an end to this nonsense once and for all.
In The Navy: If you are a female, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, and a candidate for the House of Representatives, then Tuesday was your day. There were two such candidates, and one of them, Rep.-Elect Nancy Lacore (D), flipped SC-1, the seat currently held by the obnoxious Rep. Nancy Mace (R). Lacore was fired by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, so her victory is a poke in the eye for him. Meanwhile, Eileen Laubacher (D) is on the cusp of knocking off Rep. Lauren Boebert (R). The race has been called by some outlets, though not the AP or the big three networks. Most of the outstanding votes are from a blue county (Arapahoe) where Laubacher, who leads by about 3,000 votes, has taken 65% of the vote so far.
I Am Woman: The two admirals aren't the only Democratic women headed to Washington, of course. In fact, the new Democratic caucus will include more than 100 women as members. That is a record, by a large margin.
Election Deniers Denied: Donald Trump's people have been warning him for years that talk of stolen elections is a turn-off to voters. He may never learn the lesson, nor pay a price for his rhetoric, but other election deniers are not so lucky. For example, there was only one California county that did not have any vote totals ready when polls closed, and it's the one county where the person responsible for administering the election is an election denier. That would be Shasta County—which, like most non-coastal California counties, is pretty red—and Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis. Eventually, Curtis and his staff did get the ballots processed, at which point he learned that the voters had tossed him out in favor of the not-election-denying Joanna Francescut, who ran the County's elections before Curtis got the job.
To take another example, elections in Reno, NV, are overseen by the Washoe County Commission. On Tuesday, voters tossed out most of the election-denier Republicans on the Commission, with the result that the Commission will either have a 4-1 or 3-2 Democratic majority. This is the first time in 80+ years that Democrats have controlled that body. (Reno, incidentally, is located in the R+7 NV-02, which went Democratic for the first time ever on Tuesday.)You Have to Show Up to Win...: As we have pointed out many times, you can't beat someone with no one. And that means that a party should put up a candidate in every race, no matter how slim their chances might seem. Victoria Broderick (D) decided to run in the R+11 TN-04, against Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R) because nobody else had bothered to file. She raised very little money, got very little support from the Party, and she... won anyhow, by a margin of 280 votes.
...Except When You Don't: Eric Armstrong (D) was running for the Iowa state House, but dropped out of the race on September 7 due to ill health (too late to remove his name from the ballot, obviously). It didn't matter; he still won the race, and by nearly 10 points.
Every Vote Matters: There are usually one or two stories like this every year. There were roughly 44,000 offices on the ballot on Tuesday, and it stands to reason that some of them are going to be very close contests. Victoria Broderick's margin of victory, in TN-04, may have been small, but it was positively luxurious compared to what happened in the race for Constable of the Small Claims Court in Perry Township, IN. There, Democrat Jerry Melvin defeated Republican David Taylor, 12,274 votes to 12,272 votes.
Generational Change: There were a number of elections won by Gen-Z candidates on Tuesday. Sebastian Matta (D), who is 19, will almost certainly be the new Superior Court clerk of Maricopa County, AZ. He ran because... he noticed no other Democrat had filed (see above, about showing up). Benjamin Culberson (D), who is 22, was elected to the Gwinnett County (GA) Commission in a walk. Daniel Darris-O'Connor (D), who is also 19, has just been elected to the Massachusetts state House. He'll be the youngest member of that body in 200 years.
Good Night for LGBTQ Politicians...: At least 19 openly LGBTQ candidates were elected on Tuesday. We have mentioned Sen.-elect Chris Pappas (D-NH), who will become the first openly gay man to serve in the U.S. Senate. Flying under the radar, but arguably just as notable, is Allison Montgomery (D), a trans woman who was just elected to the state House in... Alabama. And this is not one of those Utah-type situations, where there is a deep-blue district or two in the middle of a sea of red. In each of the last three presidential elections, in what will soon be Montgomery's district, Donald Trump took the majority of the vote.
...Less So for T Americans: While LGBTQ politicians were winning on Tuesday, so were a bunch of anti-trans ballot measures. A half-dozen states imposed restrictions, mostly on trans girls playing girls sports and/or gender reassignment surgery for minors. Since these are exceedingly rare phenomena, the bans are basically just performative scapegoating. That said, they mostly won by narrow margins, and they may not survive legal challenges. It is also worth pointing out that nearly every politician who went all-in on transphobia (e.g., Ken Paxton) ended up losing, and usually bigly. So, it is at least possible this bugaboo is reaching the end of its useful life, the way that gay marriage did about 15 years ago.
The Party of Lincoln?: We should have noticed this, but didn't. With the defeat of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), New England will not have a single Republican senator. That is the first time that has been true since the Republicans first began running Senate candidates in 1856.
Data Bites: The only thing that had a worse Election Day that incumbents, perhaps, was data centers. There were 41 data-center initiatives on ballots across the U.S. on Tuesday, and Big Data lost 40 of them. That's a batting average of just .024.
We have far more content than we can possibly write or publish in a day or two. So, we'll have a lot more post-election stuff next week. (Z & A)