This:
After the 2010 midterms, Republicans held the House and the majority of the population lived under GOP governors but they only had 47 senate seats after some disappointing losses.
I don’t think people saw that as an ambiguous outcome.— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) November 7, 2018
Yesterday Democrats lost a number of races they wanted to win, especially in the Senate. They lost two Southern governor's races they hoped would go their way. But they'll have a solid margin in the House, and they took back seven governorships. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the three states that gave Donald Trump his Electoral College victory in 2016, will all have Democratic governors now, and Democratic Senate incumbents easily won reelection in all three states.
And Democratic ideas are popular. Three red states -- Utah, Nebraska, and Idaho -- voted for Medicaid expansion. Proposals to end partisan gerrymandering passed in Colorado, Michigan, and Missouri, while a similar measure leads in Utah. And restration of voting rights for felons won overwhelmingly in Florida.
Scott Walker is gone. Kris Kobach is gone. Dana Rohrabacher appears to be gone.
Bigotry may have won in the Florida governor's race, and may be winning in Duncan Hunter's race against Ammar Campa-Najjar, but it was rebuffed elsewhere. Antonio Delgado, who was attacked for his youthful career in rap, defeated John Faso in New York's overwhelmingly white 19th Congressional District. Sharice Davids, a Native American lesbian running in Kansas's 3rd Congressional District, won by 9 points despite being attacked by a GOP party official as a "radical socialist kick boxing lesbian Indian" who should "be sent back packing to the reservation." Oh, and in a Connecticut state senate race, this anti-Semitic mailer didn't work:
Matt Lesser won.
I know: With a lot of voters, the Republican formula is still highly effective -- the conflation of Democrats and radicals that's been part of the GOP message since the 1960s, now with Foxian touches and with President Trump giving it his own hateful spin. I don't have a solution for that. Republicans still punch above their weight because the House is gerrymandered, the Senate disproportionately favors rural voters, and old white people always vote.
But Democratic candidates and ideas won most of the victories yesterday. We have to remember that and we have to say that.
crossposted from No More Mister Nice Blog
Editor's note: (Frances Langum)
Editor's note: (Karoli Kuns) The byline on this story originally attributed it to Frances Langum. It was actually written by Steve M. We regret the error.
