2022 Midterms - The Aftermath

There are many takeaways from the 2022 midterms, which surprised me by how they turned out - and did not turn out:

Red Puddle: The red wave I and many others feared didn't materialize.  Democrats have so far preserved most of their caucus in the House and may yet keep the majority, but Republicans are closer to grabbing it.

Roe, Roe Roe the Vote: Abortion turned out to be as big a deal as it was originally expected to be.  That's because the polls didn't take first-time voters into account, and they didn't factor into prognostications of the midterms because they hadn't voted before and therefore hadn't been part of past voting trends.  Abortion, however, wasn't strong enough to flip Republican seats in the Senate to the Democrats . . . except for one.   

Fettermania!  John Fetterman (below) defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz for returning Republican Senator Pat Toomey's U.S. Senate seat.  The same pundits who doubted Fetterman's strategy and his post-stroke viability and spoke embarrassingly of his debate performance now say the Fetterman ran a great campaign by speaking plainly and honestly on the issues, being comfortable in his own skin (and his own sweatpants), and connecting with working-class voters.  Fetterman is the first Democrat to win this Senate seat since 1962, when Richard Nixon held his famous "Last Press Conference" after being rejected in a gubernatorial election in California.  Fetterman did have to make one sacrifice; now that he's going to be a U.S. Senator, he needs a suit and a tailor.

Money Talks, But It Can't Sing and Dance: And it can't buy you love, either.  After all of the big bucks spent on the 2022 midterms - the most expensive misterm election campaign ever (at least until 2026, most likely) - the results have left Congress pretty much the same way as it was before.     

WOLVERINES!: The Democrats flipped the Michigan state legislature while holding on to the governorship, the Attorney General's office and the secretary of state's office.  Michigan turned so blue that when you see it on a political map, you won't know where the state ends and where the Great Lakes begin.

RIP Florida Democrats:  How does a state Democratic Party get as their opponents in the 2022 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections a pair of scumbags like Marco Rubio, who proposes repealing the prescription drug-price control law, and Ron DeSantis, who spends half of his time trying to censor teachers and deny the existence of gays - and then blow both elections? Six-letter word for Florida Democratic Party leadership, rhymes with "Cupid" . . .

Crist Crossed Out: The attempts of Democrats at winning back the governorship of Florida go like this - nominate a Democratic rising star, lose to the Republican candidate, blackball the former rising star; nominate Charlie Crist four years later, lose to the incumbent Republican; nominate another Democratic rising star, lose to the Republican candidate, blackball the former rising star; nominate Charlie Crist four years later, lose to the incumbent Republican . . . I have a feeling that the Democrats in Florida may change their strategy by forfeiting 2026 so they can lose the Florida governorship in 2030.  Just don't expect a third Charlie Crist Democratic gubernatorial candidacy - he lost to DeSantis by twenty points.  Even Florida Democrats aren't that crazy! It would be like repeatedly sending Debbie Wasserman Schultz back to the House after she screwed up the 2016 presidential election . . . 

Okay, bad example!

Democracy Is Safe . . .  For now, anyway.  The high voter turnout was inspiring at a time when many people thought Americans no longer cares about saving democracy, but some election deniers won their own elections - and Kari Lake may yet win the governorship of Arizona.

They'll be back.

And so will I, to focus on a couple of other elections and related issues more closely.