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TRUMP’S TRACK TO VICTORY — PLUS DEMOCRATIC DREAMS DIE ON CAPITOL HILL. An abbreviated newsletter this morning because so much is in flux.
Start with a presidential race that looks insanely close. Close, as in some states might end up nearly tied. Some races are a surprise — Nevada is super-tight, making it incredibly weird that state vote-counters are apparently taking the day off, not promising any more results until Thursday morning. But the bottom line is this: If he has in fact lost Arizona — and there are some Republicans there who still have hope — Trump needs to keep Georgia and North Carolina. He needs to win Pennsylvania. And then he needs to win Michigan OR Wisconsin. Maybe it’s possible, maybe it’s not. But the vote totals will be changing through the day, and there will likely be no definitive results by the time of tomorrow’s newsletter.
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Meanwhile, what about the hoped-for Democratic dominance in Congress? Remember all the big talk about packing the Supreme Court, about adding new states to the country, about raising taxes through the roof, and about enacting the Green New Deal. It all depended on Democratic control of the House and Senate, along with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the White House. Now, it looks like the much-discussed Democratic drive to control the Senate has fallen well short. Mitch McConnell won re-election in Kentucky. Lindsey Graham won re-election in South Carolina. John Cornyn won re-election in Texas. Joni Ernst won re-election in Iowa. Steve Daines won re-election in Montana. It appears Thom Tillis will win re-election in North Carolina. It also looks good for Susan Collins in Maine and David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia.
Remember that Democrats raised insane amounts of money to unseat these Republicans. And it appears to have failed. The dream appears to be over.
And then there is the House. In recent days there was talk of a Democratic landslide in the House, reducing the House Republican Party to a tiny remnant. There were news stories about ambitious Republicans, in particular Rep. Liz Cheney, using the huge GOP loss as a springboard to power in a reconstituted Republican Party. The only problem: It didn’t happen. Instead, Republicans actually picked off a number of House Democratic incumbents, like Collin Peterson in Minnesota, Donna Shalala in Florida, and Joe Cunningham in South Carolina, and increased the GOP force in the House.
So no packing the Supreme Court. No making Washington DC or Puerto Rico a state. No getting rid of the Senate filibuster.
But still there is the presidential race. Trump might lose. Or it might take an unexpected course. For example, if he wins Georgia and North Carolina, and then wins Pennsylvania, there is a possibility that Nevada might put him over the top. Who would have predicted that? On the other hand, Biden might eke out an extremely narrow victory that will be contingent on a number of recounts. It’s impossible to say now. But this has not turned out to be the glorious Democratic triumph that some Democrats and their allies in the media wanted.
