Midterm 2014 Roundup

I stayed up way too late last night, going to bed right around 2:00am, needing to be up less than five hours later.  But I think it was mostly worth it.

Here in Pennsylvania it was rough…mostly.  While the GOP picked up several governorships around the country and managed to defend a number of very contestable matches, Governor Tom Corbett lost his bid to be reelected to Tom Wolf.  The Left has been hammering Corbett relentlessly since 2011, Corbett had a number of slip ups as governor, he was unable to accomplish some basic things with a Republican General Assembly, and Wolf managed to come across as folksy and amiable, despite a complete lack of a plan, other than not being Corbett.

It’s going to be more than interesting to see what happens in the next four years.  Not only is Wolf going to be working with a GA controlled by Republicans, the Republicans actually gained eight seats in the House and three seats in the senate.  It is going to be difficult for Wolf to claim any sort of “mandate” when the electorate agreed to put him in control, but only under the stipulation that those actually drafting bills and voting are Republicans.

To further drive home the point that this election was less about Wolf and more about Corbett (which was Wolf’s campaign anyway), is the raw data.

2010:
Corbett – 2,172,763 (54.5%)

Onorato – 1,814,788 (45.5%)

2014 (99.5% reporting):

Corbett – 1,559,712 (45.1%)

Wolf – 1,897,560 (54.9%)

There are a few votes yet to count, but it’s unlikely Wolf goes over 2 million votes.  For as much as a wave 2010 was, it’s hard to see this election being a wave in the opposite direction for Pennsylvania.  Instead, it seems like a successful campaign of mudslinging against one’s opponent while offering up no agenda.  Yes, Wolf won, and by a lot, but it’s not quite as impressive as the percentages would suggest. 

Meanwhile, nationally, Republicans managed to do quite well with governorships, only losing their top seats in Pennsylvania and, most likely, Alaska.  This includes several big time defenses and pickups.

Sandoval

Regarding the defenses first, things were never in question in states like Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Ohio; all notable races from the 2010 wave.  All four of these governors not only were reelected, but did so with overwhelming support.  Nevada governor Brian Sandoval received 70% of the vote, New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, won reelection with 57%, South Carolina granted Nikki Haley a second term with 56%, and Ohio was never in doubt when they voted 63% to give John Kasich another go.

Haley

Other defenses were filled with speculation.  Could Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, and Rick Scott all retain their seats?  Was Kansas going to reject Sam Brownback’s conservative agenda?  Was Georgia going to be flipped?

Other than Kansas and the first hour or so of Florida, most of these questions were answered pretty quickly.  With Wisconsin just over 52% for Walker, the governor of the Badger State has now won this position three times in four years!  He’ll wind up receiving more votes than 2010 but not quite as many as he did in the 2012 recall.  I imagine this victory cements things for his 2016 presidential run.  In neighboring Michigan, Governor Snyder managed to win reelection.  Though his margin of victory diminished quite a bit from 2010, he’ll still wind up winning by roughly four percentage points, not bad for typically blue Michigan.  Both Governor Scott of Florida and Governor Brownback of Kansas were deemed vulnerable this year, but both pulled off impressive victories.  Governor Scott’s reelection likely ended the public office career of Republican Independent Democrat Charlie Crist.  Governor Paul LePage of Maine was also able to retain his job.

Georgia’s governor race, like its senate race (more on that later) were trumpeted to be the big flips for the Democrats.  Not so much.  Incumbent governor Nathan Deal was reelected by eight percentage points. 

Abbott

One other defense I’d like to note was Texas, where Greg Abbott was elected the first new governor in over a decade, following long-term governor Rick Perry, who proceeded George W. Bush.  Democrats rallied around controversial State Senator Wendy Davis last year when she filibustered to keep abortion clinics at subpar health standards.  This was to be Texas’ great opportunity to “turn Texas blue.”  Like Georgia, not so much, and then some!  Abbot won this race by over 20 percentage points, including garnering the majority of female votes.  So much for a war on women.  To add insult to injury, Democrats also lost Davis' old state senate seat.

As far as pickups go, Arkansas was the only lock.  Here, Asa Hutchinson easily won, doing so with roughly a 14 percentage point spread.  Massachusetts and Illinois were in play going into the night, but few, if any, imagined Maryland flipping red.  All three of these states are Democrat strongholds during presidential elections, and all three states decided to trust business-friendly candidates to run their affairs.  An interesting thought with Maryland is current governor Martin O’Malley’s future.  O’Malley seemed to be a favorite of the Left should Hillary Clinton choose not to run for president.  While he still may run and put up a fight, his primary opponents can now point to the fact that after running Maryland for eight years, people in a deeply Democrat state put a Republican in charge.

For a time it seemed Republicans may be able to also pick up Vermont and Connecticut, but it does look both are going to just barely slip from their fingers.  Similarly, most all night it looked like Bob Beauprez was going to take down Colorado governor John Hickenlooper.  Wednesday morning, though, it was called for Hickenlooper, who’ll win by around 1.5 percentage points.

Easily winning his first time as governor was Pete Ricketts, a great conservative who won a spirited primary in Nebraska earlier this year.

Cotton

Of course, the headline news is the Republicans taking back the U.S. Senate.  When all is said and done (finish counting in Alaska and a December run off in Louisiana), Republicans will have 54 seats, after gaining nine and losing zero.  The only toss up state Republicans lost was New Hampshire, and they turned Virginia into a much more competitive race than ever expected.  Some will argue that Robert Sarvis cost the Republicans this seat.  I don’t agree.  While I think Sarvis pulled votes from Ken Cuccinelli last year in the governor race, Ed Gillespie is too much of a moderate and political hack to assume those who voted for Sarvis would have voted for Gillespie.

Republicans did what they had to do to flip states like Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota, and Arkansas.  Though many thought Arkansas to be a tossup, I was never convinced, and apparently neither were Arkansans.  Tom Cotton, who has a very bright future with a ridiculous résumé, easily won by 17 percentage points and even kept the incumbent under 40% of the vote.  Meanwhile, a late Independent entry into South Dakota by a former Republican US Senator was supposed to muddy things up.  Despite a legitimate three-way race, Republican Mike Rounds still garnered over half the total vote.

Ernst

The other three official gains were hard fought victories in Iowa, Colorado, and North Carolina.  During the Iowa primaries, Joni Ernst leaped into the national spotlight with her now famous commercial about castrating pigs (and big spenders).  She sailed to victory during the primaries and took the lead in polls for the general election after some regrettable comments by Democrat candidate Bruce Braley.  Ernst ultimately not only flipped Iowa, but did so by 8.5 percentage points.

Colorado was another state Republicans started to feel good about prior to yesterday’s election and were able to pick up the state with Cory Gardner.  Though there is still roughly 7% of the vote to count, Gardner has been projected to win and holds an 80,000 vote lead.

Martinez

North Carolina gave me a heartbreak earlier in the summer when they selected Thom Tillis their Republican nominee over Greg Brannon.  Though I have no bones of contention with Tillis, Brannon was lined up as potentially the next Rand Paul.  North Carolina was long considered a “must win” for Republicans to take the senate before Iowa and Colorado started to swing to the right.  A Libertarian candidate was a potential spoiler, but Tillis still squeaked out a victory.

Alaska will eventually go to Republican Dan Sullivan, and Louisiana has a runoff in early December between Bill Cassidy and incumbent Mary Landrieu.  That runoff should easily go to Cassidy as long as he avoids the foot-in-mouth disease.

Republicans also managed to defend Kansas and Georgia, both states that held highly contentious Republican primaries.  Incumbent Kansas senator Pat Roberts’ first opponent dropped out when Independent candidate (though previous Democrat) Greg Orman jumped in.  As it turns out, Roberts’ political death was highly exaggerated, as he won by over 10 percentage points.  Much like its gubernatorial election, Georgia was supposed to be in danger of being flipped blue.  No such thing happened.  Republican candidate David Perdue garnered 53% of the vote.

Scott

One final Senate note.  In South Carolina, Tim Scott, who was previously appointed to replace Jim DeMint when he retired from the US Senate, was on the ballot to officially complete DeMint’s term.  Scott, a recognized Tea Party candidate, easily won election, becoming the first African American US Senator ever elected in the South.  On top of that, he actually earned over 80,000 more votes than Republican Lindsay Graham, who is South Carolina’s other US senator who was up for reelection.  Graham was targeted by conservatives during the primaries, but was unable to be knocked off.

Also notable is Ben Sasse winning election in Nebraska as expected, with the real battle having been during the primaries.

In the US House, so far Republicans have added 14 seats to their lead.  While some of my favorite candidates like Stewart Mills in Minnesota and Dan Bongino in Maryland came up short, there were several notable and even historic wins.

Stefanik

Elise Stafanik became the youngest woman ever elected to congress at the age of 30, winning decisively in NY-21.  The second time was the charm for Mia Love, who edged out a close victory in UT-4, becoming the first female African-American Republican elected to congress.  Dave Brat, who knocked off Majority Leader Eric Cantor earlier this year in the primaries, won VA-7 easily.  Barbara Comstock picked up VA-10 for Republicans, winning by over 10 percentage points.  Conservative Ken Buck won CO-4 by a whopping amount.  Another new face, Will Hurd, won over the incumbent in TX-23, a district that is a Hispanic majority.

Love

All my favorites in the House managed to retain their seats.  Justin Amash held onto MI-3 earning nearly 58%, Thomas Massie was reelected in KY-4 after more than doubling his opponents votes, and Raul Labrador won ID-1 by 30 percentage points.  Also winning were Trey Gowdy (SC-4), Jim Jordan (OH-4), Marlin Stutzman (IN-3), and Ted Yoho (FL-3).  In one of the more odd races, Scott Perry easily defeated one-term Harrisburg mayor Linda Thompson in PA-4 by nearly 50 percentage points.  Thompson was ousted in the 2012 Democrat primaries to be reelected as Harrisburg mayor after one term.  For some reason she thought running for the House out of conservative PA-4 was a good idea.  I anticipate her running for US Senate in 2016 next.

I just want to address a few final thoughts regarding the impact on the 2016 election.  For the Democrats, this has positive and negative impacts on Hillary Clinton.  On the negative side, nearly all the candidates she stumped for in the finals weeks lost (as Rand Paul as pointed out).  However, a fully Republican controlled legislative body paired with a Democrat executive will create plenty of tension over the next couple years.  Should Clinton continue to position herself as a moderate who can work with both parties, she could be a winner.

This election is neutral to Joe Biden, and as I said a big negative for O’Malley.  New York governor Andrew Cuomo easily won reelection and remains a potential favorite in a non-Clinton primary.  Hickenlooper keeps his possible 2016 dreams alive with his close victory.  I see minimal impact on Secretary of State John Kerry and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.  Senator Elizabeth Warren probably gains a little with her support of neighbor senator Jeanne Shaheen who eked out a victory of Scott Brown, Warren’s former foe.

Hurd

This midterm election has far more impact on potential Republican candidates.  Even though he wasn’t on the ballot, New Jersey governor Chris Christie gets credit as the chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association.  The GOP picked up several governorships under his guidance.  Governor Walker obviously gets a big boost, as do Governor Martinez, Governor Kasich, Governor Haley, Governor Snyder, and Governor Sandoval if any of them decided to run.  Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz also will be doing the rounds in the next week as they promote the new senate majority they helped campaign for.  Former governors Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee don’t take a big hit, but possibly lose a little ground for not being top surrogates nor winning any elections of their own.  The longer they remain out of office while others rack up accomplishments, the less likely either is able to gain traction in any presidential poll.

Okay, well four Word pages later I think that about wraps up my thoughts.  I’m still really bummed about Governor Corbett losing, but overall it was a great day for Republicans.  President Barack Obama was adamant that although he wasn’t on the ballot this year, his policies were.  And those policies, including immigration, the economy, and foreign affairs, were all defeated.

Also Sandra Fluke lost.

Also, also, scroll back through this post and look at the pictures.  This is what the new Republican Party looks like, and I'm damn proud of the diversity!