Do you voters feel in charge? The electorate is a necessary evil to be handled as window dressing for the real levers of power. So which of the Big Business/Military Industrial Complex set of representatives did you prefer to endorse?
Hint: it doesn’t matter because either way you lose, and BB/MIC wins.
But the parties’ rhetorical stances and who is elected do show preferences, and how much the voters are willing to sacrifice for their values. Generally, the well-off vote more than the poor, and can ‘afford’ to express those more, hence, the ‘economy’ took a back seat to ‘abortion rights.’
Control of the Senate hung Wednesday on Nevada and Arizona, where victories for Democrats could secure their party a majority in Congress’s upper chamber even if the tight Senate contest in Georgia moves to a December runoff.
Democrats defied all predictions of a midterm electoral drubbing on Tuesday, winning dozens of key House, Senate and governors’ races across the country and handing a stunning rebuke to Republicans who had promised that a “red wave” would end one of the most consequential midterm campaigns in recent memory.
But even with those disappointments, Republicans could still squeak out a narrow congressional majority. To hold the Senate, Democrats need two of their endangered incumbents, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, to hold on to their seats. If only one of those two does, Democratic control will rest on either the last ballots in Georgia pushing Senator Raphael Warnock over 50 percent or on a Dec. 6 runoff in that race, which would captivate the country.
On Tuesday, Disabled John Fetterman won over the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz flipping a Senate seat from Republican to Democrat and emphatically put an end to that talk of a Republican sweep. Two incumbent Democratic senators, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Michael Bennet of Colorado, won re-election decisively, according to The Associated Press, ending two races that were seen as potential harbingers for a Republican blowout. But in Ohio, the author and investor J.D. Vance defeated his Democratic challenger, Representative Tim Ryan, by seven percentage points.
In the fight for the House, by early morning on Wednesday, only one Democratic incumbent, Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia, had been defeated. But her loss was matched by the defeat of a veteran Republican, Representative Steve Chabot, in Ohio.
Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, a Democrat, was in danger of losing his seat. But in other critical House races, endangered Democrats like Representatives Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Chris Pappas of New Hampshire retained their seats, according to The Associated Press. Seth Magaziner won in deep-blue Rhode Island to keep an open seat in the Democrats’ column.
With seats still in play in New York and several Western states, control of the House is anything but settled. It could take several days before the next House majority is clear.
Beyond the House and Senate, voters were determining which party would control 36 governorships and an array of critical state positions. Governors’ contests in New York and Pennsylvania and Senate races in Colorado and Washington all went to the Democrats. And in swing states, Democrats fared far better than expected. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, was re-elected in Michigan, as was Gov. Tony Evers in Wisconsin.
All indications were that Republicans would end up at best with one of the weakest performances in decades by the out-of-power party against a first-term president’s party. The polarization of the country may have functioned as a check, as the passions of one side offset the other. But America leaves these midterms much as it entered: a fiercely divided country that remains anchored in a narrow range of the political spectrum.
Inflation was a key issue in the race, leaving Democrats grasping for a response. But former President Donald J. Trump’s influence saddled Republicans with weak candidates, and the Democratic base turned out in large numbers.
Voters in California, Michigan and Vermont chose to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitutions, indicating that, when asked directly, a broad cross section of Americans want to protect abortion access.
Rhetorically, the issues boiled down to abortion versus the economy. Those crosscurrents defined these midterms. Although meaningless for the exercise of real power, the elections clearly show preferences, and large numbers of people are willing to be poorer so long as they see their values expressed.