Most of you know me as a cheerful pessimist. When I see a half a glass, my immediate response is, Somebody’s been drinking from that. Get that shit outta here!
While my articles have largely been cautiously optimistic, I didn’t go in with my eyes closed either. When I sat down to watch the returns at 4 pm yesterday, I had pretty much resigned myself to a GOP net gain in the House of 12-15 seats. And I could live with that, it was far below the 25-40 drsts most pundits were predicting. I could live with that, especially with the specter of Trumpenstein running again in 2024, and blowing up the GOP again.
Right now, the current MSNBC House projection reads the GOP 222-213. But the margin of error there is +/- 7. And the bulk of the remaining flippable races are in California, Oregon, and Washington, all Democratic states. McCarthy is no sure thing yet.
It didn’t start out well. If the GOP in fact retakes the House, they can thank Florida Governor Ron Desantis. He personally redrew the redistricting map, and got what he wanted, the GOP picked up 3 seats in the first hour. And there were 3 reengineered seats in Virginia the GOP was all-in on. An early returns showed the Democrats behind in all 3 races.
But the longer it went on, I started to see a pattern. The only seats the GOP was picking up were in gerrymandered districts. They got the 3 seats in FL, 1 off the 3 in VA, 1 in TN, and one in GA. But they weren’t flipping anything else. If they were going to retake the House, it wouldn’t be by much. And I started to feel a bit better.
But as the results rolled on, I noticed another pattern, and another piece clicked into place. First the GOP momentum stalled out, and then the Democrats started flipping seats. Amd where were they picking them up? In Democratic gerrymandered districts. They flipped seats in MI, IL, NY and CO. They even retook a TX seat that they lost in a special election after it was gerrymandered. The Democrats were beating the GOP at their own game.
Democratic gerrymandering even played a part in my adoptive home state of Nevada. Our US Representative is Dina Titus. And she figured to be forever, her district was as safe as houses. But her district was neighbored by 2 Democratic members who were on the GOP’s prime pickup targets. So the Democrats made a tactical decision, and carved into her borders to strengthen the other 2, putting her own seat at risk. It worked out though, the Democrats held all 3 seats, and are on track to flip one as well.
This is why Kreepy Kevin McCarthy shouldn’t start measuring drapes just yet. There are just too damn many jokers in this deck. For instance, the Democrats are actually poised to flip a CO seat later today or tojmorrow when Lauren Boebert gets her crazy ass walking papers. And almost all of the rest of the flippable seats are in California, where the Democrats have the numerical advantage. And it can take CA up to 14 days to count all of the mail in ballots,since they only have to be postmarked by election day.
It’s nice to see for a change that the Democrats can occasionally hoist the GOP on their own petard by showing they know how to gerrymander too. And since statistics prove that GOP gerrymandered districts get weaker over time due to demographic migration, this might only get better from here on out.
One last thing. Don’t give up on Catherine Cortez-Masto’s NV Senate seat just yet. She trails GOP election denier Adam Laxalt by about 22,000 votes. And there are still about 100-120,000 outstanding mail in and election day drop-off ballots to count in Clark County, the Democrats base. But here’s what sweetens the wine. All of the election day live votes are in and counted, the best numbers the GOP traditionally sees. And Clark County normally tends to break 2-1 to the Democrats on early and mail in voting. Plenty of room to run with, bit it might be Saturday or Sunday before we really know.
Everyone always advises everyone else not to count their chickens before they’ve hatched.
The republican early gloating might turn out to be like their vaunted ‘red wave’.
They’ll be left with egg on their faces.
On the Nevada race, there is a need for volunteers to cure ballots to confirm ballots. If you can do so, volunteer to help out with that.
“In Democratic gerrymandered districts. They flipped seats in MI, IL, NY and CO.”
I don’t know about MI, IL or CO, but NY lost any TRULY “gerrymandered” districts when the GOP judge threw out the map the Democratic Legislature drew up.
Texas gerrymandered to basically keep the status quo. They beefed up the red districts and made the blue districts more blue. They could have drawn riskier districts but didn’t. They kept claiming they would pick up 3 districts in South Texas, but basically got what they created, two blue districts and one red district. Hispanics/Latinos in South Texas did not suddenly become republican despite all the press that Hispanics/Latinos were just waiting to vote republican. Didn’t happen. South Texas counties overwhelmingly supported Beto.
I always see on this site a lot of bitching about republican gerrymandering, democratic gerrymandering? Not so much. Seems like if it’s bad when the ‘pubes do it, we OUGHT to be bitching when the dems do it. It’s wrong, ought not be done, and we need to get it eliminated across the board, not just when it’s not in our favor.
The only elections that concern me are in Arizona for governor and senator. If we end up with Kari Lake she will destroy the entire state. She’s only in this for the power it would give her. She knows absolutely nothing about governing. It would be a disaster for us. She doesn’t give a damn for anyone but herself. We don’t count.