The Red Wave That Turned Into a Trickle
Who, besides we political geeks and nerds, would have ever held out hope that except for FDR in 1934, and George W. Bush (after 9/11 and going to war on false pretenses) in 2002, that Joe Biden would have the best midterm election of any sitting President in memory? (As if any of us can actually remember 1934.) Well, that’s the way thing have gone. And despite the fact that we still don’t know if the next House Speaker is going to be Nancy Pelosi, current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (who has already announced his candidacy) or Ohio’s favorite Luddite “Gym” Jordan, Democrats have done a far better job than most pundits might have imagined. There is still a possibility (slim though it may be) that the Lower Chamber will remain in the hands of the Democrats. Then too, who would have put good money on the Democrats keeping their oh-so-slim majority in the Senate?
So far, Democrats have picked up one Senate seat (Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s vanquishing of celebrity surgeon/snake oil salesman Mehmet Oz by 4 points [50.8%-46.8%] despite still recovering from a rather severe stroke? As of this writing (Saturday, 11//12/2020 at 10:30), Republicans and Democrats are tied at 49-49 in the senate, which means that in order for the Democrats to maintain control, they will have to win in either Nevada, or Georgia, where there will be a runoff election between Herschel Walker (R) and incumbent Senator Rafael Warnock (D) on December 6. Incumbent Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly defeated Republican Blake Masters, who ran as an election denier who had received a coveted endorsement by Donald Trump. Running as a moderate, Kelly - who won a special election to fill the seat that was left open at the time of John McCain’s death - ran as a moderate, breaking with Biden on issues like immigration as he sought to navigate headwinds generated by Biden’s low approval rating and widespread economic pain due to rising inflation. carried moderates by a margin of 63% to 33% and independents by a margin of 55% to 39%, NBC News exit polls showed. Kelly won women by 12 points and lost men by 4 points. Kelly and Masters broke even with white voters but Kelly carried the state's large Latino electorate by 18 points, assuring his victory.
N.B. Early this morning (Sunday 11/13), the A.P. called the Nevada senate race pitting incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto [D] against former Attorney General Paul Laxalt in Masto’s favor, thus assuring that Democrats would maintain control of the upper chamber. The Democratic win in the Senate is likely to prompt further recrimination in Republican circles over who is to blame for the poor showing. Much attention has so far focused on Trump after he backed rightwing or celebrity candidates in several key races who lost, such as Dr Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.
There are still several significant House races as yet to be determined. In California’s 47th District. which is largely made up of Orange County (as a kid we used to call it “Orangutan” due to its ties to the John Birch Society), the Harvard-educated law professor Katie Porter, who was first elected in 2018, is locked in a battle with Conservative Republican Scott Baugh, best known for having been sentenced to paying $47,900 in civil fines stemming from violations of California's Political Reform Act. For her part, Porter, a moderate Democrat, is the first member of her party elected to represent Orange County in many, many years. As of early Sunday morning 11/13, with 72% of the votes counted, Porter (who is viewed as a potential future star of her party) is ahead by 4,733 votes (51.27%-48.73%).
In Colorado’s 3rd District, ultra-conservative gadfly Lauren Boebert led with 50.17 percent of the vote to Democrat Adam Frisch's 49.83 percent with 99 percent of votes counted, pulling ahead of the Democrat with a razor thin margin. Although not a particularly powerful member of the House, Boebert manages to get herself on the news for her ultra-pro gun and anti-Semitic rants . . . and her ability to raise campaign cash. Ironically, the man who may well end her 1-term Congressional career, Aspen City Council member Adam Frisch, is from a practicing Conservative Jewish family.
Speaking of Jewish candidates, despite the frightening uptick in anti-Semitism, a surprising number of Jewish men and women have found electoral success. The new, 118th Congress, will include:
Becca Balint, the first Jewish woman elected to Congress from Vermont. Balint, a former state senator and activist, was the first openly gay person to serve as President pro tempore in Vermont's State Senate. She is now Vermont's first female representative and its first openly gay representative.
Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island, Rhode Island's treasurer, who defeated Republican challenger Allan Fung for a seat held by Democrats for three decades but that many had considered a prime Republican steal opportunity. Magaziner, who considers himself ethnically Jewish but does not identify religiously, is the son of a Catholic mother and former senior Bill Clinton adviser Ira Magaziner. He now joins Rep. David Cicilline in Rhode Island's Congressional delegation, which is now 100% Jewish.
Jared Moskowitz was elected to replace Florida Democrat Ted Deutch, who left his role as the most prominent pro-Israel member of the Democratic caucus to run the American Jewish Committee. Formerly Florida's director of emergency management, Moscowitz played a primary role in dealing with the state's rising antisemitism, adopting a similar tack as his predecessor in condemning allegedly anti-Jewish sentiments from both parties.
New Yoker Daniel Goldman, the former House Democratic counsel in Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, made waves during his New York district's primary after he invested millions of his estimated $253 million net worth to his campaign. The heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, Goldman is set to be among the richest members of Congress. He won his primary against three progressive challengers who effectively cancelled each other out. The AIPAC-backed Goldman, who says he is raising his children in a modern Orthodox tradition, was buoyed by the United Democracy Project Super PAC donating significant funds to a non-affiliated Super PAC, which in turn attacked Niou over her Israel positions. His newly drawn district covers liberal parts of Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn with heavily Orthodox populations.
Ohio Republican Max Miller, a former Donald Trump aide who earned the former president's enthusiastic endorsement, joins Tennessee Rep. David Kustoff as one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress after Lee Zeldin lost his bid to become New York governor. The 33-year-old Miller, whose mother and father both come from powerful families in the local Jewish community, ran to succeed Republican Trump critic Rep. Anthony Gonzales.
Ohio Democrat Greg Landsman has long been a supporter of Israeli civil society organizations that support marginalized youth. The Democratic Majority for Israel and Jewish Democratic Council of America-endorsed Landsman has focused his campaign on education access based on his career as a nonprofit leader and public educator. He also holds a master's degree in theology from Harvard and participated in the Wexner Heritage Program for Jewish leaders, further citing his Jewish identity as a key force behind his career on the Cincinnati city council. He defeated Rep. Steve Chabot, a favorite of AIPAC and the RJC who voted to overturn the 2020 election results.
One of the most notable additions to the national political scene will be newly-elected Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who handily defeated the fiery, ultra-conservative state senator Doug Mastriano. Elected Pennsylvania’s Attorney General in 2017, Shapiro was attacked by the anti-Semitic Mastriano for sending his 4 children to the same Hebrew Day School he attended when he was a youngster, claiming that because the school’s tuition of nearly $40,000 per student, Shapiro was “obviously out-of-step with average Christian Pennsylvanians.” Shapiro and his wife Lori, who met at the Akiba Hebrew Day School more than 30 years ago, maintain a kosher home.
2022 was an election of many firsts:
Arkansas:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) – First elected female governor of Arkansas
Leslie Rutledge (R) – First female lieutenant governor of Arkansas
California:
Alex Padilla (D) – First elected Latino senator from California
Robert Garcia (D) – First out LGBTQ immigrant elected to Congress
Rob Bonta (D) – First elected Filipino American attorney general of California
Shirley Weber (D) – First elected Black secretary of state of California
Connecticut:
Stephanie Thomas (D) – First Black female secretary of state of Connecticut
Florida:
Maxwell Frost (D) – First Gen Z member of Congress (He’s 25 years old, born in 1997)
Illinois:
Delia Ramirez (D) – First Latina member of Congress from Illinois
Eric Sorensen (D) – First out LGBTQ member of Congress from Illinois
Maryland:
Wes Moore (D) – First Black governor of Maryland
Anthony Brown (D) – First Black attorney general of Maryland
Aruna Miller (D) – First Asian American lieutenant governor of Maryland
Massachusetts:
Maura Healey (D) – First out lesbian governor in US history; first out LGBTQ governor of Massachusetts; first elected female governor of Massachusetts
Andrea Campbell (D) – First Black female attorney general of Massachusetts
Michigan:
Shri Thanedar (D) – First Indian American member of Congress from Michigan
John James (R) – First Black Republican elected to Congress from Michigan
New York:
Kathy Hochul (D) – First elected female governor of New York
George Santos (R) – Wins the first House election (versus Robert Zimmerman) that featured two out LGBTQ nominees
Ohio:
Marcy Kaptur (D) – Once she is sworn in next year, she will be the longest serving woman in congressional history
Oklahoma:
Markwayne Mullin (R) – First Native American senator from Oklahoma in 100 years (Robert Owen served from 1907-1924)
Pennsylvania:
Summer Lee (D) – First Black female member of Congress from Pennsylvania
Austin Davis (D) – First Black lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania
Vermont:
Becca Balint (D) – First woman to represent Vermont in Congress; first out LGBTQ member of Congress from Vermont
Charity Clark (D) – First female attorney general of Vermont
It should also be noted that voters in California, Michigan and Vermont chose to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitutions. Voters in Kentucky - where abortion is currently banned - rejected an amendment that would have said there was no right to the procedure at the state level. These results, which came just months after the U.S. Supreme Court removed the constitutional right to abortion, showed that when asked directly, a broad cross section of Americans want to protect abortion access. As the Supreme Court decision began to fade from the headlines, Republicans who support abortion restrictions tried to shift the political conversation to what they believed would be more favorable ground like economic issues and crime.
What they had not considered - or believed - was that the fate of democracy was also on the ballot . . . as well as the FPOTUS, Donald J. Trump. Now the finger-pointing begins. Trump believes that Republican losses were due mostly to a string of candidates not loyal enough to his “big lie” strategy as to deserve victory. Republican insiders are more wont to blame Florida Senator Rick Scott (who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, termed the election a “complete disappointment” for Republicans, blamed the losses on low voter turnout on Election Day. Others blamed Scott himself, for helping select some of the most deeply flawed candidates in recent memory.
(It also helped that in what turned out to be a risky - though grand political chess move - Democratic insiders decided to make significant contributions to the most vocal, right-wing pro-trump candidates in various primaries. The idea behind the scheme was to persuade Republican primary voters to send their most extreme candidates to the general election, with the hope that swing voters wouldn't be able to stomach them, and instead vote for the Democratic candidate. As things turned out - especially in races for senate seats and governorships, their strategy worked quite well.)
In both the House and Senate, current Minority Leaders - Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative Kevin McCarthy - could likely face their own living hell. Already, the FPOTUS has told reporters that McConnell a “lousy leader” and thrown his support behind Florida Senator Scott. Conveniently, Scott is rumored to be mulling a presidential run against Trump in 2024. On the House side, despite the fact that no reputable news source has made the call giving Republicans a razor-thin victory, Republicans have begun jockeying for leadership roles under the assumption that they will be able to seize power. Some House Freedom Caucus members are outright opposed to making McCarthy the next Speaker - a position he has been dreaming of for many years. Other members of the caucus are demanding concessions from him that would greatly water down his power as speaker . . . should he realize that dream. These concessions could include appointing such right-wing crazies as Marjorie Taylor Green (GA), Matt Gaetz (FL) and Paul Gosar (AZ) to the most powerful committees . . . if not posts as committee chairs. (MJT easily won reelection 65.8%-30.0% in Georgia’s 14th District; Gaetz 67.8%-32.2% in Florida’s 1st District; Gosar ran unopposed in Arizona’s 9th.) No matter what the case, the Republicans will begin the 118th Congress a party and a caucus at odds with one another.
Word has it that this coming Tuesday (November 15), DJT, the man of Perpetual Promotion, will announce his intention of running for POTUS in 2024. Perhaps he believes that once he throws his hairpiece into the ring, the DOJ will have to stop investigating his innumerable deceptions and didoes. Perhaps he believes that there’s far more money to be made running for office than submitting to legal writs. Then too, perhaps he is just as self-deluded as he seems. Whatever may be the case, I believe that his shelf life as leader of the Republican Party is closing in on its expiration date.
Indeed, the Red Wave he has so long predicted has turned out to be merely a trickle.
Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone