This year's midterm elections were historic for the Democratic Party, even if the blue wave didn't reach everywhere
I will preface this blog post by saying that, as of this writing, some parts of the country may still be counting votes cast in the November 6, 2018 midterm elections, and there are runoff elections in Georgia (December 4) and Louisiana (December 8) for statewide office yet to be held. Also, this will be a living blog post of sorts until the end of the current calendar year, as I'll update and add information and analysis to this blog post throughout the month of December.
However, one thing that is certain is that this year's midterm elections were monumentally excellent and historic for the Democratic Party, even if the blue wave didn't reach every corner of the country, or the blue wave wasn't as large as you might have predicted.
The only major bright spot for the GOP nationally was the U.S. Senate races, where they flipped Senate seats in North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, and, in a surprise, Florida. However, Democrats flipped Senate seats in Nevada and Arizona, meaning that Republicans only made a net gain of two seats in this year's Senate elections, and that's not a particularly good result for the GOP, given that, going into the midterms, Democrats had a total of 26 seats, counting seats in Maine and Vermont held by independents who caucus with the Democrats and a special election in Minnesota, to defend, whereas Republicans only had to defend nine seats, giving Republicans an extremely favorable Senate map where they could have easily gained ten seats, if not more than that, had 2018 been a year not strongly favoring either major political party instead of one favoring the Democrats overall.
The big story ended up being the U.S. House races, where Democrats flipped the U.S. House with what appears to be a 40-seat net gain (assuming that the Democratic candidate in the 21st Congressional District of California wins and the Republican incumbent in the 9th Congressional District of North Carolina wins), the Democrats' largest net gain of seats in the House since 1974. The Democratic Party became the first political party to win over 60 million votes nationwide in any midterm election for House seats, and, as of this writing, Democrats' vote total is 86.49% of that of Barack Obama's record presidential popular vote total, which, given that midterm election turnout is usually quite a bit lower than presidential election turnout, is astonishing. Another interesting fact is that, due to the rural-urban divide in American politics, Democrats won a House majority, but they'll only represent one out of every five acres of land that is part of a U.S. state.
In the state gubernatorial races, Republicans flipped an independent-held governorship in Alaska, but Democrats flipped Republican-held governorships in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, New Mexico, Nevada, and Kansas. While Republicans still hold a majority of state governorships, a majority of Americans who reside in a state live in a state that either has or will have a Democratic governor.
Maybe your favorite Democratic candidate didn't win his or her election. Maybe the blue wave didn't reach your part of the country. However, there was a blue wave that swept across a large portion of the country on November 6 of this year.
However, one thing that is certain is that this year's midterm elections were monumentally excellent and historic for the Democratic Party, even if the blue wave didn't reach every corner of the country, or the blue wave wasn't as large as you might have predicted.
The only major bright spot for the GOP nationally was the U.S. Senate races, where they flipped Senate seats in North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, and, in a surprise, Florida. However, Democrats flipped Senate seats in Nevada and Arizona, meaning that Republicans only made a net gain of two seats in this year's Senate elections, and that's not a particularly good result for the GOP, given that, going into the midterms, Democrats had a total of 26 seats, counting seats in Maine and Vermont held by independents who caucus with the Democrats and a special election in Minnesota, to defend, whereas Republicans only had to defend nine seats, giving Republicans an extremely favorable Senate map where they could have easily gained ten seats, if not more than that, had 2018 been a year not strongly favoring either major political party instead of one favoring the Democrats overall.
The big story ended up being the U.S. House races, where Democrats flipped the U.S. House with what appears to be a 40-seat net gain (assuming that the Democratic candidate in the 21st Congressional District of California wins and the Republican incumbent in the 9th Congressional District of North Carolina wins), the Democrats' largest net gain of seats in the House since 1974. The Democratic Party became the first political party to win over 60 million votes nationwide in any midterm election for House seats, and, as of this writing, Democrats' vote total is 86.49% of that of Barack Obama's record presidential popular vote total, which, given that midterm election turnout is usually quite a bit lower than presidential election turnout, is astonishing. Another interesting fact is that, due to the rural-urban divide in American politics, Democrats won a House majority, but they'll only represent one out of every five acres of land that is part of a U.S. state.
In the state gubernatorial races, Republicans flipped an independent-held governorship in Alaska, but Democrats flipped Republican-held governorships in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, New Mexico, Nevada, and Kansas. While Republicans still hold a majority of state governorships, a majority of Americans who reside in a state live in a state that either has or will have a Democratic governor.
Maybe your favorite Democratic candidate didn't win his or her election. Maybe the blue wave didn't reach your part of the country. However, there was a blue wave that swept across a large portion of the country on November 6 of this year.
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