November 8, 2022
And now the results are coming in.
Chuck Gray, ascending to Secretary of State, mounted on the Myth of Stolen Election.
The votes are cast, the counting is underway. Here are the results as they come in.
16:42.
Governor.
Mark Gordon has won, as everyone knew that he had well before today.
November 9, 2022
The proverbial morning after.
U.S. House of Representatives
Harriet Hageman wins with 132,172 votes. 47,241 were cast for her Democratic opponent, Lynette Gray Bull, who frankly underperformed in my view. Towards the end of her campaign, Gray Bull began to raise her ethnicity in a fairly aggressive manner, which likely didn't help her in a state where such things generally do not win votes.
Governor.
Mark Gordon has won, as noted last night.
This race was emblematic of the current political sickness in the state. Gordon isn't a bad Governor, and is no doubt better than some we've had in the now somewhat distant past. But the Democrats couldn't even find a real contender. Yes, they ran somebody, but that's about all you can say.
His real opponents, therefore, were from his own party in the primary.
Gordon took the office in the general election with over 143,000 votes, with his Democratic opponent taking about 30,000. The Libertarian took around 8,000 votes, less than the 11,000 write ins that were cast.
Secretary of State.
Chuck Gray, as noted above, ascends to this office, with 147,368. He had no opponent, but 13,574 votes were for write ins.
State Auditor
Kristi Racines won with over 161,000 votes against no opponent.
State Treasurer
Curt Meier won with 159,000 votes against no opponent.
Megan Degenfelder took the office against Serge Maldonado, who barely campaigned. The vote counts were 142,511 to 43,251, which means that Maldonado did nearly as well as Gray Bull in this race.
Constitutional Amendment A
This amendment received 101,000 votes, and therefore passed, but not by a comfortable margin. In order to pass, an amendment must receive a yes vote based on the total number of cast ballots, which was 198,000. So this based, but barely.
Constitutional Amendment B
This bad idea failed, making it the only bright spot in the election. 115,000 people voted no. I thought this likely to fail, but only for not getting enough yes votes based on total ballots cast, not on an outright "no" vote.
Other Races
Locally, two of the "Mom's For Liberty" were elected to the school board. One was not.
The 1 Cent and Lodging Taxes passed easily.
Nationwide
Donald Trump, who isn't running for anything, actually gave a victory speech last night.
A "red wave" (no, not a Communist wave, which would make more sense as a "red" analogy) was expected to take place, but it doesn't really appear to be happening in my view. The Senate will likely remain Democratic. The House is likely to go over to the GOP as expected.
So we'll get split government from a government again. The Democrats have themselves mostly to blame for this as they have, as per usual, been singularly inept at getting their message across or acting quickly on anything.
United States Senate
While it's still too early to tell, it appears that the Democrats have retained control of the Senate.
John Fetterman beat out Dr. Oz in a particularly odd race in Pennsylvania. Fetterman goes on to the Senate.
The much followed Georgia race was too close to call and appears to be certain to go into a runoff between two candidates, which is silly, but there you have it.
JD Vance won his bid for the Senate in Ohio. The author of Hillbilly Elegy had turned Trumpist during the campaign, which for a while appeared likely to sink him.
House of Representatives
Also, too early to tell, but it looks as if the Republicans will take the House of Representatives.
While it's too early to tell, it appears that Lauren Boebert may lose her race in Colorado, and is losing at this time.
Marjorie Taylor Greene was reelected.
Cont:
A Reuters headline:
Race for U.S. Congress is tight, no Republican 'red wave'
At this point, given the last several elections, it ought to be abundantly clear that polls are no longer accurate.
Cont:
It appears that Trump endorsed Kelly Tshibaka will narrowly defeat incumbent Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in a state that uses ranked choice voting, so both of them are competing against the Democratic candidate as well. They're pretty much neck and neck, which shows that in this instance this operated in favor of the Trumpite challenger.
Where it didn't was with the Congressional race in which newly elected Democrat Mary Peltola easily defeated two Republican challengers, including Sarah Palin.
Cont:
Reuters take:
Control of both the House and Senate is up in the air. There’s still a lot we don’t know, but one thing we do know is that Republicans did not have the night they were hoping for.
Here are six takeaways:1️⃣ The Senate is undecided and will take a while to know. Democrats flipped Pennsylvania and Republicans now need a net gain of two pickups to take the Senate.2️⃣ Republicans underperformed in the House, and there’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing. They're looking at a possible net gain of only about eight seats, which is on the low end of forecasters’ projections. This could threaten Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy’s plans to be speaker of the House.3️⃣ There’s also going to be blame directed at Trump. The former president weighed in heavily on these elections, but a lot of his candidates underperformed, raising questions about how effective his brand is in purple states.4️⃣ Florida might be the new Ohio. The state that decided the 2000 election and has been a swing state since is looking like it’s firmly in GOP hands now with wins by Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio.5️⃣ Democrats appear to slip again with Latino voters. Despite a decent night overall, exit polls showed Democrats won about 60% of Latinos overall, down from 65% in 2020, which was already considered a decline.6️⃣ The cross-currents of this election between abortion rights and inflation were real. Abortion rights clearly fired up voters who cast ballots for Democrats and helped stem a Republican wave. Abortion rights appear to have succeeded in the four states where they were on the ballot, including in Michigan and Kentucky.
Cont:
Well, it's the end of the day, and we still don't know if we'll have a Republican Congress, a Democratic Congress, or a split.
One thing we do know. Donald J. Trump's association with the Republican Party caused it to underperform at an epic level. While some Trump backed candidates such as J. D. Vance or Harriet Hageman owe their positions to Trumpism, others went down in defeat due to their association with him. By and large, Trump was a liability to the party.
It'll make no difference in the GOP. While this wake-up call should finally be one, it won't be. What may finally be is a 2024 Presidential Election defeat, something that is now all but certain if Trump runs in 2024.
Ironically, perhaps, Wyoming has gone full bore personality worship into Trump at the exact same time that the Trump brand promises irrelevance. If the House is Democratic, Hageman will be a nullity. If it's Republican, she'll be a near nullity.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram posed this question:
Republicans, you can follow Donald Trump into the abyss or win elections. Choose wisely
The Star Telegram is right. A sane GOP, or rather one that had a modicum of courage, would now purge the Trumpites. Keven McCarthy would be sent to do nothing. Hageman would be ignored. Ted Cruz would have his batteries removed and become a depowered robot.
But it doesn't seem to be exhibiting courage in regard to Trump. Rather, it continues to fear him, even though now the last illusion of Trumpism has been stripped away. He has no influence with the real voters, outside of Wyoming.
Speaking of a candidate associated with Trumpism, Lauren Boebert, at the time of this posting, trails her opponent by 62 votes, showing that in fact, every vote does count.
Oregon has passed a very strict firearms purchasing bill requiring a state permit that also includes the requirement that a person pass an approved class before obtaining a permit. While I'd be unable to say this with certainty, this would appear to be the strictest purchase statute in the US. It will undoubtedly be tested in court, and my guess is that it will fail to past Constitutional muster.
The statute barely passed.
November 10, 2022
Wyoming's turnout in the election was the lowest since 2014.
I wondered if this might occur, due to so many races being determined in the Primary.
It looks as if control of the Senate is going to end up with the Georgia runoff, again.
The truly amazing thing is we don't know who won the House yet. That shows how massively in error the "Republican Wave" predictions were.
Kevin McCarthy, anticipating that the GOP will get enough seats in the House to be the majority party there, has announced his bid to be Speaker of the House. Given the massive underperformance of Republicans in the election, combined with McCarthy's hostility to some Republicans who didn't tow the "ignore what happened on January 6" line, and his cozying up post disaster to Trump, its likely he'll receive competition.
November 13, 2022
In no small part thanks to Donald Trump, the Senate will remain in Democratic hands.
And in no small part due to Donald Trump, who will control the House remains up in the air. Trump managed to potentially buck a decades long trend and it's possible, at this point, that the Democrats may remain in control of the House after the midterm election.
The Great Wave. . . what didn't happen.
Kari Lake, MAGA candidate for Arizona Governor, appears to have lost in a tight race and is now attacking the vote counting and even asserting that people did not vote for her opponent.
November 15, 2022
Katie Hobbs beat extreme election denier Kari Lake for the position of Arizona's Governor, giving Arizona its first Democratic governor in 14 years.
Lake stated regarding the results, "Arizonans know BS when they see it" and, in spite of what she apparently meant, it would appear at least over half of them do.
November 16, 2022
And the GOP, as of tonight, has 218 seats in the House, with the Democrats at 211. There still remains races which are not decided, but this means the GOP controls, barely, the House.
And this thread now closes.
November 24, 2022
Well, maybe not quite closes.
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Lisa Murkowski retained her Senate seat in Alaska, beating a Trump backed opponent. This seat remains in GOP hands, as it was known it would, but it followed the general tone of the election in rejecting Trumpism, contrary to the direction in Wyoming.
Mary Peltola retained her seat in the House for Alaska. Peltola is a Democrat.
Alaska, readers will recall, went to a new, more democratic, system of choosing candidates this year which operates to lessen the impact of party affiliation. Wyoming has considered adopting such a system.
Right now, with some races still not decided, the balance in the House is 213 Democrats to 220 Republicans.
December 6, 2022
The election is now over. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, in a special runoff election in Georgia, defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker.
With this, the Democrats actually gained in the Senate in an off year.
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