With some races still to be decided as of this writing, the Democrats have picked up 25 house seats. (They have taken 29 Republican seats and lost four for a net gain of 25). There are still 20 to be decided.
Our long ago prognosis was for a 30 seat gain for a seven seat advantage will be close when all is settled.
In either case the Democrats won the house and the battle for speaker is underway. We tell you again that the many who said to voters “they will never vote for Nancy Pelosi” will now do the slight of hand we have predicted for months. That is, they will say behind closed doors they voted against her, but in the open competition against a Republican they had to vote for her.
You know the old you can fool some of the people all the time. This is such a case.
In the senate the red state Democrats paid the price for their vote against Kavanaugh. Down go Donnelly, McCaskill and Heitkamp. With two races undecided the Republicans look like they will pick up two, possibly three seats. The one undecided they can still win is Arizona, which remains undecided at this time.
So what does it all mean?
First it means we are a very divided nation politically.
Second, 2020 will be the donnybrook of our lifetime.
Third, Nancy Pelosi will be the lead face of the Democratic party. She has to control the far left of the party now. This will be her number one issue.
Fourth, the administrations drive to reshape the judiciary will continue since the senate approves the nominations.
Fifth, Florida is always going to keep us up and watching.
Finally, we will end up with a stalemate or compromise government. If the house goes left and proposes an extreme idea the senate will reject it. If the senate goes too far right, the house will reject it. So do they compromise is the question.
Some election results:
Keith Ellison won his election to Attorney General in Minnesota despite the “me too” charges.
At least 92 women won election to congress. A record.
At least 38 of them were woman of color, another record.
Nancy Pelosi won her district with 86% of the vote.
Maxine Waters won hers with 76%.
There were dozens of congressional races decided by razor thin margins. This means a strong top of the ticket in 2020 could result in a house adjustment again in 2020.
The Republicans face a senate challenge in 2020 with the number of seats they have up.
In Florida they passed an initiative that restores the right of felons to vote. The number of new eligible voters is about a million and a half. Could this impact 2020?
For the political junkie here’s access to the WSJ analysis and polling.
It’s everything you may want to know about who voted how:
https://www.wsj.com/graphics/election-2018-votecast-poll/