Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The 2018 Wyoming General Election (and the national election too).

Somehow it seemed like it was long in coming, perhaps because the primary seemed quite long, and then the post primary season was surprisingly anticlimactic.

Columbia is watching you. Do the right thing.

But it's finally here.


So, informed reader, go out and vote.


That's all that makes a democracy work, after all.


And everyone and everything depends upon an informed electorate.

What will occur?

Well, in this election in Wyoming the results seem pretty predictable, but we'll see by the end of the night.

And the national election, which in recent years have proven to be unpredictable, will be big news no matter what.

So, as the famous movie line goes, buckle up, we may be in for some bumpy weather. . . .or at least almost certainly some bumpy punditry, going into the news cycle tonight and certainly into the weekend news shows.

This post, of course, will one of those that will be updated as we find out what happened.

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November 6, 2018

The use of red and blue for GOP and Dems just drives me nuts.  For the historically minded, it makes no sense at all.

Eee gads, whatever news network that came up with that several years ago should be sentenced to remedial history lessons.

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November 7, 2018

It was a night of low drama in the Wyoming election. All the expected candidates won and by comfortable margins.

Mark Gordon took the Gubernatorial race with 67.4% of the votes, a commanding margin.  Mary Throne had run a good race, but her best chances were always in the event that one of the more right wing Republicans took the primary.  For awhile Gordon, whose race it "was to lose" according to one of the early reports about the GOP primary, looked like he might fall short in the primary, but when he prevailed in the GOP contest the results were predictable.  Perhaps what was not was the margin, as she took only 27.7%, a small percentage for a well run campaign.

"T" Rex Rammell, as he took to calling himself, fell flat getting only 3.3% of the vote.  The Constitution Party candidate had claimed that Republicans had asked him to run on the basis that Gordon was securing the GOP ticket by way of some sort of conspiracy and at least in debates he seemed to truly believe that he was the state's only hope against "turning blue" but rather obviously the voters were not impressed.   This isn't the first defeat for Rammell who should be receiving a message by now as a result.

Laurence Streumpf, who sounded surprisingly good in the debates (or at least the one debate I heard) came in below everyone else at 1.6%.  That's not good for the Libertarian candidate, but it does say something about Rammell's effort as its somewhat comparable and Streumpf hard ran at all.

In other races Edward Buchanan took the Secretary of State position with over 68% of the vote.  Melissa Racines absolutely dominated the race for Auditor, receiving 73.3% of the vote.  Curt Meier did nearly as well  with just under 73% of the vote.

John Barrasso turned out to easily defeat Gary Trauner, with Barrasso receiving 67.1% of the vote. Trauner, who nearly unseated Barbara Cubin in a race for Congress some years ago, ran a good campaign but it obviously fell far short in the end.  Likewise, Liz Cheney was reelected to the House with nearly 64% of the vote.  In both instances Albany County and Teton Counties voted for the Democratic candidate, which sends some sort of a message regarding those counties.  Trauner of course lives in Teton County and Democrat Greg Hunter lives in Albany County.

In other words, the Republicans not only had a good night in the Wyoming election, they dominated it, even picking up a State House Seat that had been occupied by a Democrat, although they also lost one to an Independent as well, so perhaps that was a numerical wash.  The GOP likewise picked up a Senate seat at the expensive of an incumbent Democrat.

Well what about the races nationwide, or more particularly for Congress?

Going into this election there was talk by the chromatically challenged press of their being a strong potential for a "blue wave", i.e., a large-scale Democratic victory in which Democrats would pick up the U.S. House and Senate. That was scaled back in recent days but there was still talk of a blue wave swamping the House.  It didn't occur.

The Republicans gained two seats in the Senate. The Democrats picked up 26 seats in the House in an election that received unusually high turn out. They thereby took the House.

For reasons that aren't really clear to me, a party needs 218 seats to control the House of Representatives and the Democrats secured 219, giving them control of the House.  That's nothing to sneeze at, but they barely made it and that wasn't what was anticipated early on.  And, moreover, in recent elections the House changing parties mid term has been the norm.

So what does that mean? Well, it means that we're back to an episode of divided government.  The Democrats have the House and the Republicans have the White House and the Senate.

Given the degree of polarization in Washington right now, indeed the nation, that likely means that for the next two years next to nothing will get done legislatively.  The Senate will be able to continue to confirm Presidential nominations with impunity so that part of President Trump's agenda will go unabated.  The Democrats in the House will have the subpoena power and will use it to hit many with the same for investigations it will no doubt launch.  Legislatively, anything that's not pretty much universally agreed to by both parties simply won't happen at all.  Maybe that's what people secretly want.

What it also means is that the Democrats are gong to have to determine what to do about Nancy Pelosi, who has given every sign of wanting to be Speaker of the House again.  Her prior recent episodes of leadership have not been stellar and there are Democrats who are indicating that they will challenge her.  My prediction is that she'll prevail and end up Speaker again, where she'll be no more effective than she has been on previous occasions.

What the national election additionally shows is that both parties have to demonstrate what they're about.  The GOP struggled with that unsuccessfully the past two years and never really came a definitive vision of itself.  In the Senate, where it remains more old school conservative than the house, the Republicans did well, which should tell them something.  In the House, where the message wasn't as clear, they did not do as well, although in fairness the House normally goes to the other party, at least recently, in the mid terms.  But the Democrats have not really done any better.  They did prevail, but the party retains very old leadership while having a base that in this election varied from the very far left, to the just mad, to a bit of a "blue dog" resurgence.  Nobody's message seems to be hitting home.

Everyone now has two years to ponder it and try to work that message out. During that two years, not much legislatively will be happening, which both parties will have to live with.

It probably should be additionally noted that the Democrats did really well with Gubernatorial races around the nation, which in recent years they have not.  They picked up seven seats to where they now hold 22 of the nation's 50. That's a big change from the current situation in which they had held 15.  Ted Cruz managed to hold on to his seat, but only barely.  Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and one time candidate for President is going back to Washington as a Senator from Utah.  Across the nation, irrespective of the final numbers, some well known incumbent members of both parties went down in defeat, possibly showing that in at least some areas people are simply flat out mad.

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