7th November 2018, 6:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 7th November 2018, 10:44 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Yeah, things have gone pretty well overall. The Dems took the House with a solid majority, which is great! It was desperately badly needed, and we did it. Fantastic. The exact size of the win isn't clear yet as lots of races haven't finished counting, but it was a definite blue wave and we managed to overcome gerrymandering just enough to win despite it. Dems surely would have won more seats if not for gerrymandering, so we still need to fight it to make things a little bit fairer, though. (Oh, and I see we even won a seat in Oklahoma, surprisingly enough! Not that Kentucky seat though, Weltall... sorry.)
Here, the Democrat won for Governor with over 50% of the vote, which is the first time a Democrat has gotten over 50% in a statewide race since 1988. Yeah, it's been a long time. We only have three statewide elected offices, Governor and the two US Senators, but still it's been a long time. Turnout was very high here in very blue southern Maine; Portland had 69% turnout and voted 78% for Mills, for instance, and turnout was high in lots of other very blue areas too. I believe it, because it took me almost an hour to get in and out of the polling place, quite rarely for this state. It was worth it, though. Oh, and Dems kept the Maine House and took the Senate, so we control the government now and finally will pass medicaid expansion, after all this time.
Of course, the big disappointment this election is the US Senate. Before the election, I was hoping to break even, really; maybe 50-50 on a very good day, but I just didn't think we would win all those red seats, and sadly we didn't. Despite a large majority of voters voting for Democrats for Senate, the Republicans managed to win at least three Democratic Senate seats, and maybe four if Florida stays as it is now. On the other hand though, since this Senate map was so absurdly bad, it's not a bad outcome really; 10 incumbents in states Trump won, and 6 survived and a seventh has a slight chance of making it (though probably not)? That's a decent result. And we won at least one too, in Nevada, plus perhaps another depending on absentees in Arizona. Had Hillary been President, we'd probably be looking at at least twice this many seat losses in the Senate, sadly... so yeah, not a good day in the Senate vote, but it wasn't awful either because of how hard not losing seats was going to be.
Overall it's pretty great... and Trump seems to think so too, since he just fired Jeff Sessions in his latest effort to stop the Mueller investigation. You can't stop the Dems from taking power in two months, Trump, and they'll learn what Mueller found regardless of whether you want them to or not...
Here, the Democrat won for Governor with over 50% of the vote, which is the first time a Democrat has gotten over 50% in a statewide race since 1988. Yeah, it's been a long time. We only have three statewide elected offices, Governor and the two US Senators, but still it's been a long time. Turnout was very high here in very blue southern Maine; Portland had 69% turnout and voted 78% for Mills, for instance, and turnout was high in lots of other very blue areas too. I believe it, because it took me almost an hour to get in and out of the polling place, quite rarely for this state. It was worth it, though. Oh, and Dems kept the Maine House and took the Senate, so we control the government now and finally will pass medicaid expansion, after all this time.
Of course, the big disappointment this election is the US Senate. Before the election, I was hoping to break even, really; maybe 50-50 on a very good day, but I just didn't think we would win all those red seats, and sadly we didn't. Despite a large majority of voters voting for Democrats for Senate, the Republicans managed to win at least three Democratic Senate seats, and maybe four if Florida stays as it is now. On the other hand though, since this Senate map was so absurdly bad, it's not a bad outcome really; 10 incumbents in states Trump won, and 6 survived and a seventh has a slight chance of making it (though probably not)? That's a decent result. And we won at least one too, in Nevada, plus perhaps another depending on absentees in Arizona. Had Hillary been President, we'd probably be looking at at least twice this many seat losses in the Senate, sadly... so yeah, not a good day in the Senate vote, but it wasn't awful either because of how hard not losing seats was going to be.
Overall it's pretty great... and Trump seems to think so too, since he just fired Jeff Sessions in his latest effort to stop the Mueller investigation. You can't stop the Dems from taking power in two months, Trump, and they'll learn what Mueller found regardless of whether you want them to or not...