Collected here are interesting items that I happen to notice during the evening. I promise no penetrating insights. For those, I recommend Henry Olsen’s highly well-informed twitter feed. For a combination of insight and entertainment value, there’s always Vodkapundit. The material below is in reverse chronological order. Times are Pacific Standard Time.
- And now it is time for bed. It’s sad to see such bright prospects shattered, but the cause is not lost, only postponed.
- 9:30 p.m.: In my home state of Washington, there is no good news. Patty Murray, a useless barnacle on the Senate, has been unsurprisingly reelected to one of the seats that Republicans might have won in a Red Tsunami, and there is a serious risk that the Dems will gain a House seat. A Trump-endorsed candidate ousted Jaime Herrera Beutler, IMHO an excellent Congressman, after she voted in favor of the second Trump impeachment. With 65 percent of the vote in, the Democrat, a soi-disant moderate (no doubt as phony as the rest of that ilk), is leading 53%–47%.
- 8:40 p.m.: At this point, pessimistic observers doubt that the GOP can gain a Senate majority. Dr. Oz is running behind Trump’s 2020 numbers in several Republican-leaning counties: a likely Republican loss, and there are as yet no pick-ups anywhere. The silver lining is that control of the House (not in serious doubt at this point) will limit Joe Biden’s ability to damage the country and will dampen the hopes of Democrats who want to retire him before 2024. The results also reflect badly on Donald Trump’s political judgment. He can’t deny that his handpicked candidates performed miserably in what ought to have been a spectacular Republican year.
- 7:45 p.m.: So far, it doesn’t look like the Democrats are getting annihilated. They held two or the three possible GOP pickups in Virginia, kept a seat that they seemed likely to lose in Rhode Island (but still finished ten points behind Biden’s 2020 result in the same district), prevailed without much of a fight in the New Hampshire Senate race and allegedly have won the Colorado race, though almost no votes have been counted there. There’s a pretty good chance that control of the Senate will turn on a runoff in Georgia (though this time Donald Trump won’t be trying to sink the GOP). Nonetheless, the huge splits between mail-in votes and election day votes makes it hard to be certain what has really happened. Well, with one exception: Florida has flipped from purple to bright red. Both DeSantis and Rubio won by landslide margins (currently 59.5% DeSantis, 57.8% Rubio). The margins were similar in all other statewide races. Republicans won 20 of 28 Congressional seats, up from 16 of 27 in 2020.
- 6:55 p.m.: Another tidbit from Henry Olsen: “Meanwhile, in NV with 15 minutes to go registered Republicans are massively outvoting registered Dems - UNLESS Dems are disproportionately dropping off ballots at drop boxes today, which don't get collected until the polls close. This is an example of why tonight is SOO HARD.” And why we may not know how far the red tide has come in until sometime tomorrow, if then.
- 6:15 p.m.: The crowd at Ron DeSantis’s victory celebration is reportedly shouting, “Two more years!”
- 6:10 p.m.: From the Babylon Bee, America’s only reliable news source: “Record Numbers Of Voters Show Up To End Democracy”.
- 6:00 p.m.: Mercer County, New Jersey, is a Democratic stronghold. All of its voting machines are currently out of order. Incompetence does as much to bollix elections as conspiracies. It would be nice if we took voting seriously enough to do it right.
- 5:45 p.m.: Henry Olsen notes that reading tea leaves is harder than usual this year: “I'm not tweeting as much tonight because the massive bifurcation between D-heavy mail and R-heavy ED makes it much harder to extrapolate from partial returns. Will keep following and let you know as races start to take shape when plenty of both types of votes are in.”
- 5:05 p.m.: With none of the GOP-voting Panhandle results yet reported, Ron DeSantis is 15 points ahead of Chameleon Charlie Crist.
- 5:00 p.m.: The New York Times twitter feed has posted “5 ways to soothe election stress”. I hope that it helps their readers.
- 4:55 p.m.: The first House seat to change hands this evening was Florida’s 7th District, where the Democratic candidate was ahead by six percent with 71 percent of the vote counted. Then came the ballots cast on election day. With 93 percent counted, the Republican leads by six.
- 4:45 p.m.: A real Donald Trump quote (see and hear it here) about how credit should be allocated for Republican victories and defeats: “Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit. If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” I await claims that this is one of those “deep fakes” we keep hearing about.
- 4:30 p.m.: Henry Olsen reports that the DeSantis and Rubio are leading in the early voting returns from the most strongly Democratic parts of Florida, including Dade County. It’s going to be a short election night in the Sunshine State.
- The very first race to be decided comes from Guam, which has elected a Republican delegate to Congress for only the second time in its history. Don’t tsunamis start in the Pacific?
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