Though paths remain for Republicans to take control of both chambers of Congress, the party will not see the large majorities it had hoped for.
By now you are likely aware that Election Night was hardly the jubilant GOP celebration that many were predicting. As of Wednesday afternoon, control of both the House and Senate still hangs in the balance.
Control of the Senate will come down to three key races that are still too early to call — Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. Democrats appear to have taken three other key Senate races, in Colorado, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. (Alaska also remains too close to call, but the race pits two Republicans against each other: challenger Kelly Tshibaka and incumbent Lisa Murkowski.)
Republicans have won Senate races in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Ohio, according to projections. Republicans held 49 Senate seats as of Wednesday afternoon, while Democrats held 48 seats.
If Republican Adam Laxalt holds on to his slight lead over incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada — and Blake Masters is unable to overcome incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly’s existing lead in Arizona — control of the upper chamber will come down to Georgia, where Republican Herschel Walker looks slated to head to a run-off against incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock.
As for the House, key districts in New York and California had not been called as of Wednesday morning, though Representative Sean Patrick Maloney conceded to New York State assemblyman Mike Lawler, making him the first Republican in 40 years to defeat a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman. In the House, Republicans had won 210 seats to Democrats’ 194 seats as of Wednesday afternoon.
Though paths remain for Republicans to take control of both chambers of Congress, the party will not see the large majorities it had hoped for. The less-than-stellar showing for Republicans comes despite history being on their side; conventional wisdom says the president’s party typically loses seats in a midterm election.
Thirteen of the last 19 midterms saw losses in both chambers for the party in power, per Reuters. Of the other six elections, only the 2002 midterms saw gains in both the House and Senate for the president’s party, which was widely seen as a show of support for the Bush administration after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Under President Donald Trump in 2018, the GOP lost 40 House seats. Under President Barack Obama in 2010, Democrats lost 63 seats. Under President George W. Bush in 2006, the GOP lost 30 seats.
This year, Republicans had also pinned their hopes on voter frustration with record-high inflation and rising crime. Nearly a third of voters said inflation was their top issue in deciding which House candidate to vote for, according to a CNN exit poll. More than seven in ten of those voters supported Republican candidates.
Abortion seemed to energize voters in several states: Voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont elected to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitutions, while voters in Kentucky rejected an effort to revise the state constitution to make clear there is no protected right to abortion.
NR’s Ryan Mills offers this recap of election night:
Big GOP wins in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Marco Rubio cruised to easy victories, seemed to signal the beginning of a strong night for Republicans. The GOP also flipped at least three House seats in Florida, which is increasingly looking like a Republican stronghold.
But Republican optimism for a wave or tsunami election quickly faded as mixed results started trickling in from around the country, showing that voters are skeptical about handing power to the GOP. In many hotly-contested races, Republicans appeared to be on their heels all night. Several prominent candidates endorsed by former president Donald Trump lost, and in some cases lost badly. If Republicans do win the House or Senate, their margins will likely be small.
In Virginia, Democrat representatives Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton held off their Republican challengers in closely-watched races, two early signs that the night wouldn’t turn out the way Republicans had hoped. Republican Jen Kiggans did flip a Virginia House seat, defeating incumbent Democrat Elaine Luria.
Republicans were able to flip seats in New Jersey, Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee. In New York’s 17th Congressional District, Republican Mike Lawler held a narrow lead over Democratic incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who has served five terms in Congress. But in Rhode Island, Democrat Seth Magaziner defeated Republican Allan Fung who appeared to have an early lead in the race. In Texas, Democrat Representative Vicente Gonzalez defeated Republican Mayra Flores, the Mexico-born incumbent whose win in a June special election shocked the political world, and was pointed to as evidence of a rightward drift of Latino voters in South Texas.
Democrats also appear to have flipped a House seat in Ohio. In North Carolina, Democrat state Senator Wiley Nickel appears to have defeated Republican Bo Hines for an open and competitive seat.
Democrats were projected to win the governors’ races in several battleground states that voted for Biden in 2020, including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Democrats had an altogether strong showing in Michigan, where the party took control of the state senate for the first time in four decades, cementing a trifecta of power in both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion.
New York governor Kathy Hochul won her first full term in office on Tuesday, defeating Representative Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.) and dashing hopes that Republicans could take the governorship for the first time in 15 years.
However, Republicans were able to hold on to governorships in Georgia and Texas. Texas governor Greg Abbott dealt Democrat Beto O’Rourke his third loss in six years, proving a combined $164 million in donations were for naught.
—Brittany Bernstein
Around NR
• Despite not appearing on the ballot, former president Donald Trump faced a bruising night, with his status as kingmaker in question after his endorsees underperformed or lost their races, Ari Blaff writes. Trump’s endorsements in the Pennsylvania races for governor and U.S. Senate didn’t pan out, nor did his backing of New Hampshire Republican Don Bolduc in the race for U.S. Senate. Representative Lauren Boebert, a Trump ally, has surprisingly fallen behind in her GOP+6 Colorado district. Trump-backed election denier Kari Lake was trailing Democratic secretary of state Katie Hobbs in the Arizona governor’s race on Wednesday. Arizona’s Republican Senate candidate, Blake Masters, trailed incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly by six percentage points, as well.
• At least some former Trump loyalists appear to be getting the message. Jim Geraghty highlights a Facebook post written by Virginia GOP delegate Tim Anderson, who says in no uncertain terms that it’s time for the party to move on from Trump:
While Trump was President, we lost a supermajority in the House of Delegates, a majority in the Senate and in 2019 Democrats controlled all state government for 2 years – radically changing Virginia. After Trump lost, the GOP gained Delegate seats back and won all 3 statewide offices. I call this the Trump effect. One thing Trump does very well in Virginia is mobilizing the left to vote against him and anyone who supports him.
I care about Virginia more than anything. Trump running for President is the absolute worst thing that can happen to Virginia state politics. We must take a different direction and the Virginia GOP and Republicans must divorce from Trump – for the sake of Virginia and for the sake of the nation.
• Charles C. W. Cooke also believes the central lesson from Election Night is exceedingly clear:
If they have any intention of turning around their party’s increasingly moribund fortunes, Republican voters must respond to last night’s profoundly disappointing midterm-election result by telling the Republican establishment to pound sand.
That’s right: It is time for Donald Trump to go.
• Though Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s margin of victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams was large, his win was “not inevitable,” Dominic Pino writes, noting that Trump had “made it a mission to defeat Kemp after he refused to play along with Trump’s stolen-election nonsense in 2020.”
Going up against the former president, who remains the most prominent personality in the Republican Party, was no small task. But Kemp approached his reelection campaign intentionally and with considerable skill.
• Jim Geraghty says you shouldn’t let anyone tell you it was an okay night for Republicans:
And the nation, deeply dissatisfied with the way the Democrats were running things, looked at what the GOP offered as the alternative and concluded, “Nope, I’ll stick with what the Democrats are giving me” in a lot of key places.
If you can’t elect a lot of Republicans in an environment like this, when can you?
• A spot of good news in an otherwise rough night for conservatives: Charles C. W. Cooke declares, “Florida is a red state now.”