Okay, the 2022 midterms didn’t go exactly as we’d hoped. A lot of races that we thought we might be able to pull off, well … we didn’t.
All the fundamentals pointed to big GOP wins, but they didn’t quite materialize. That said, it’s easy to complain that we didn’t do better, but I’d like to highlight some bright spots.
Surprising results in New York
I’m not going to lie, Hochul’s victory in New York on Tuesday was tragic. That said, she won by a historically small margin for a Democrat in a deep blue state. I don’t want to be one of those people who tries to spin a loss into a victory, but I think Zeldin’s phenomenal performance tells us any Republican has the potential to make a race competitive with the right issues. And Zeldin may have helped the GOP win some surprise elections in the state. One such electoral victory that we can gloat about in New York is the historic loss of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney, who conceded Wednesday.
We’re still likely going to win the House
There are still plenty of races that haven’t been called yet but counting those that have, the GOP has the shortest path to the majority. According to Decision Desk HQ, Democrats have won 187 seats, and the GOP has won 203. This means that the GOP needs to win 15 seats to get the majority, while the Democrats need to win 31.
It looks like we won Nevada
While the races haven’t been officially called yet, it looks like Republican Adam Laxalt will eke out a victory in the Senate race in Nevada, and Joe Lombardo looks to be on track to oust incumbent Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak. This bodes well for the GOP in the Silver State, which, frankly, despite it technically being a battleground state, I’d long written off as a blue state.
We can still win the Senate
Though the results of Nevada and Arizona haven’t been officially projected yet, if we assume that Nevada goes red and Arizona goes blue, we still have a shot at winning the U.S. Senate. The race in Georgia between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker is now headed to a runoff election. Without the libertarian candidate on the ballot, Herschel Walker stands a solid chance of winning the race and, thus, cementing GOP control of the U.S. Senate.
Florida is now a bona fide red state
Under the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has accelerated its transformation from a battleground state to a red state. In fact, as DeSantis’s rapid response director Christina Pushaw noted, DeSantis “won Florida by a bigger margin” than Gavin Newsom won California.
.@RonDeSantisFL won Florida by a bigger margin than @GavinNewsom won California 😄
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) November 9, 2022
Florida’s status as a red state will significantly help GOP presidential candidates in the future. In the past, Florida has been a bellwether state. With Florida going red, it makes it easier to conserve resources to use in other states that have trended purple in recent years, like Arizona and Georgia.
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