Let me first point out, as I have on Twitter, that I have no dog in this fight; however, I strongly favored an opposition Congress to Biden, meaning the GOP flipping the House and/or Senate.
The Senate recapture from a 50/50 split: the GOP had a tougher road. defending 60% of the 35 available seats (two of the elections were special/residual elections in CA (D) and OK (R)). As I write, FNC has the Senate 48/48 with 4 undecided: WI, AZ, NV, and GA. Technically, Alaska has 2 Republicans with over 40% going into a ranked voting system second round, with IMO Murkowski likely to prevail over her Trumpkin opponent. Republicans are currently leading in WI and NV (a potential flip), with the AZ candidate trailing and Walker/Warnock appear likely headed to a runoff next month (Deja vu). So if current trends hold, it looks like 50-49 R with a Warnock runoff victory making the election a draw, and VP Harris the tie-breaking vote keeping the Senate under Dem control. I'm more cautious about trailing votes in AZ, likely highly GOP, could melt Kelly's lead like late returns in 2020 nearly had Trump take back the state. I still rate a Masters' flip as unlikely but it could give the GOP the tie-breaking vote.
The House is tighter than expected, with NBC projecting 220 GOP seats of 218 needed to flip.
FNC shows 200 called. Here's my take of outstanding GOP race leads:
AZ 3
CA 7
IA 1
MD 1
MI 1
MT 1
NY 4
OR 1
WI 1
No source I've found (outside a paywall) has a convenient presentation of the uncalled as I've just listed. There are subtle differences among FNC, NBC, and AP/Google, and the above is my compilation among sources; I don't know the nuances of the outstanding votes, e.g., mail ballots, blue or red precincts, etc. The projections listed above may not hold up, other races being led by Dems could also flip based on the nature of outstanding ballots.
I would say I'm probably more surprised by the underwhelming performance in the House races. I myself tweeted to leftist trolls on an expected "red tsunami". I thought (although I didn't look at individual races) an unpopular first-term POTUS Biden would be soundly rebuked like Clinton and Obama were. Decades-high inflation, declining real income, rising crime statistics, a border crisis, high gas and energy prices, the college loan cancellation kerfuffle: what the heck happened?
My canary in the coal mine was Fung's unexpected loss in Rhode Island. Don't get me wrong: getting a New England Republican elected to the House has been an uphill battle, but Fung, a popular former Cranston mayor had
polls up 6 to 8 points, typically statistically significant. I instantly wondered, what the heck just happened? Other than a solid red wave hitting Florida, I wasn't seeing much of a trend in House flips, maybe 2-5 seats through up to midnight or so. (I didn't think the Left Coast was going to bail out the GOP.)
There were other ominous signs: some recent polls showed Oz possibly taking a lead in PA, although not statistically significant, and Fetterman kept his early, initially massive lead on Oz all night; then, whereas I didn't expect Senate victories in the WA and NH contests, I expected them to be much closer than they turned out to be.
A couple of anecdotal observations: it looks like GOP celebrity CO Congresswoman Boebert has been defeated for reelection (no official call yet), And Sarah Palin looks as though her second attempt to win Alaska's House seat has failed (the Dem incumbent has 47% and just needs 3 points from their other 2 competitors in ranked voting. Palin would need to get almost all second-choice votes which she didn't get a few weeks back. It surprised me if Palin resumed her political career, she didn't go after Murkowski. The good news is this is probably her swan song in politics.
So what the heck happened? Was it all about abortion, Roe/Dobbs? Clearly, pro-life forces didn't fare well on the issue in 4 state ballots. It's possible that polling models undersampled pro-abort voters. I have consistently argued abortion should not be a federal issue, arguing, short of an unlikely constitutionsl amendment, things like Roe codification would not survive judicial scrutiny.
My initial stab at a post-audit is that the GOP failed to close the deal with voters. It wasn't enough to point at Biden's unpopularity, inflation and other economic issues, etc. I don't think that voters wanted the GOP to spend the next 2 years with endless investigations of Hunter Biden, the administration, etc. I think they wanted more of a positive, constructive agenda that the GOP can make deals with Biden on economic and other issues.
Last night was a weird evening, I had FNC on mute while listening to a right-leaning YouTuber's livestream podcast. He was a Trumpkin, bristling at the suggestion that Trump's meddling in PA and GA's Senate races cost them. Yes, no doubt the GOP faced challenges not unlike when McCain selected Palin as his running mate, even having to sit in on one of her interviews. The analyst clearly didn't expect and couldn't explain how his rosy expectations failed to materialize. Expect Trumpkins to point their fingers at McConnell or party officials for failing to invest in their candidates.
As I get ready to publish this post, some late developments relative to my summary above:
- The Warnock/Walker race is headed for a state runoff in about a month.
- FNC has called Wisconsin for Johnson, so the Senate GOP count is 49.
- There's a slight discrepancy between FNC and its website, but they show House GOP count at 204 on TV. I think the new seats are from WI and NY on my above list.
