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November 11th, 2022 Political Note #523 Democrats who will save the Republic Fourth Update
2022 General Election
We have had our election and are not done yet. We are still counting. It would be great to have a system where we have early voting for a few weeks and count the vote. Where we have in person voting and can count the ballots that night. Where we have absentee ballots, receive them up to three days after the election (say), can immediately eliminate those who have already voted, and supplement the votes that had already been counted by the end of the day after election day.
We probably could do it. If we were willing to spend the money. We did not do too badly in this election, especially considering our fears. There have been small glitches, but nothing serious.
I am writing at the end of the day after the election. We have a pretty good idea where things stand. They are better than most of us expected, but still uncertain. We don’t know which party will control either the Senate or the House.
The Senate
Sen. Cortez Masto. Sen Warnock Sen Kelly
Of the four Democratic Senators who were considered vulnerable, one won her election. Two are leading (one of whom, Raphael Warnock, will run against the second place Republican in a run off). For the other two, Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto, the votes in Arizona and Nevada, respectively, have to be counted.
NH Inc Maggie Hassan defeated Donald Bolduc
AZ Inc Mark Kelly leading Blake Masters
GA Inc Raphael Warnock ahead of Herschel Walker. The run off is on December 6.
NV Inc Catherine Cortez Masto behind Adam Laxalt
There are two more incumbent Democratic Senators who some thought could lose. They won.
CO Inc Michael Bennet v Joe O’Dea
WA Inc Patty Murray v Tiffany Smiley
Four races with either a Republican incumbent or were previously held by a Republican were considered as a possible gain for the Democrats. Democrats flipped one of those seats.
PA John Fetterman defeated Mehmut Oz
NC Cheri Beasley lost to Ted Budd
OH Tim Ryan lost to JD Vance
WI Mandela Barnes lost to Inc Ron Johnson.
Four more Republican held seats were seen as possible wins for Democrats.
FL Val Deming lost to Inc Marco Rubio
IN Tom McDermott lost to Inc Todd Young
IA Mike Franken lost to Inc Charles Grassley
UT Ind Evan McMullen lost to Inc Mike Lee
If the results reflect the way each Senate race is leaning, we have a Democratic majority – a 50-50 majority.
Support the Democrats who are still in the process – Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto for whom resources are required to attend to the vote counting. Especially help Raphael Warnock who has another election on December 6. He has to win all over again. Help him do that.
The House
Frisch Hodge. G. Perez. Rollins
The House is more complicated. One of the complications the fact of redistricting. I did my projecting a little differently from the way most did. Instead of looking at which districts were flipped to see which party would win enough seats to control the House, I looked at projections by various websites, made my own projections, including projections for those that are considered toss ups.
As a result, I projected that Republicans would have 222 seats, Democrats would have 213 seats. The following Democrats won seats or are leading for seats that I had projected the Democrat would lose:
Arizona’s 1st district – Jevin Hodge (Leading by 1.7%)
California’s 41st district – Will Rollins (Leading by 8%)
Colorado’s 3rd district – Adam Frisch (Leading Lauren Boebert by 64 votes)
Colorado’s 8th district – Yadira Caraveo (Won)
New Mexico’s 2nd district – Gabe Vasquez (Won)
North Carolina’s 13th district – Wiley Nickel (Won)
Ohio’s 13th district – Emilia Sykes. (Won)
Pennsylvania’s 7th district – Susan Wild (Won)
Pennsylvania’s 17th district – Chris Deluzio (Won)
Rhode Island’s 2nd district – Seth Magaziner (Won)
Washington’s 3rd district – Marie G Perez (Leading by 6%)
The following Democrats lost or are losing seats I had projected them to win
California’s 13th district – Adam Gray (Behind 49.9-50.1)
Iowa’s 3rd district – Cindy Axne (Lost)
Maryland’s 6th district – David Trone (Behind 51-49)
New York’s 3rd district – Robert Zimmerman (Lost)
New York’s 4th district – Lauren Gillen (Lost)
New York’s 17th district – Sean Patrick Maloney (Lost)
New York’s 19th district – Josh Riley (Lost)
Texas’s 15th district – Michelle Vallejo (Lost)
Virginia’s 2nd district – Elaine Luria (Lost)
After these results (fully acknowledging that this list includes races for which the count is not final) has the following effect:
Republicans: 222-11+9= 220
Democrats: 213+11-9= 215
A five seat Republican margin in the House. Help Jevin Hodge, Will Rollins, Marie G Perez, and Adam Frisch close the deal. And help David Trone and Adam Gray fend off defeat.
If we recover the leads and win California’s 13th, Maryland’s 6th, we are within one seat of controlling Congress. David Beard, for Daily Kos elections, suggests possible wins in seats I was expecting to lose: Arizona’s sixth where Kristin Engel is trailing by 3 or Oregon’s fifth were Jamie McLeod-Skinner is behind by 2.6. Think of this as a two stage process. 1. Recover leads in two seats and get within one seat of having a majority. 2. Gain the lead in one of two seats to actually get the majority.
We’ll see what happens when all the votes are counted in the contested seats and when the Georgia run off is over.
HEROS AND VILLAINS
Consider three Democrats from New England as heroes
- Jared Golden (ME 02). A PTSD recovered veteran of the Middle Eastern wars, a former intern and admirer of Republican Senator Susan Collins, and the first Member of Congress to be elected via ranked voting. He has been declared a winner in this race.
- Chris Pappas (NH 01). Descendent of a Greek immigrant Greek who learned the language and small business capitalism quickly The family candy and ice cream store plus the recent (50 years ago) restaurant addition is a New Hampshire institution. This particular grandson is a gay man who has been able to win in a culturally conservative area.
- Jahana Hayes (CT 05). An outstanding student who grew up in public housing and was supported by a high school guidance counselor when she became pregnant. She persisted, became a teacher in the local high school, and became the national teacher of the year. When first elected to Congress, she schooled the local press explaining that she may be an Democratic African American, but she was not a member of the Squad.
Consider two Democrats from the State of Washington as heroes
- Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA 03) has a degree from progressive Reed College. Nevertheless, she is true to her local, blue collar roots and owns and runs a garage with her husband. She is defeating Joe Kent, a Donald Trump acolyte whose website features him in camouflage gear holding a pistol. He defeated Jamie Herrera Beutler, a member of Congress first elected in 2010 who voted to impeach Donald Trump in the second try.
- Kim Schrier (WA 08) decided on medicine rather than astrophysics to honor the medical care she received as a child. She decided on politics, notwithstanding having been recognized as Seattle’s most outstanding pediatrician by Parents’ Magazine, because the incumbent appeared to be ready to vote against the Affordable Care Act. This is a swing district. Every year is close.
Consider two Democrats from the state of Colorado as heroes
- Adam Frisch (CO 03) is a risk taker. Son of a Minneapolis physician he moved to Colorado to ski and go to college and to New York to work as a waiter and as a currency trader. He returned to Colorado where he is a city councilor in Aspen and ran against and appears to have defeated Lauren Boebert, one of the more odious Trump supporters in Congress
- Yadira Caraveo (CO 08) is the daughter of undocumented immigrants all of whose children went to college. Yadira Caraveo became a pediatrician to low income children and a state representative whose advocacy for her constituents challenged convention. She will bring that same advocacy to Congress.
Consider three Democrats from the State of Ohio as heroes
- Greg Landsman (OH 01) is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. He worked for the last Democratic Governor of Ohio, for a non-profit that supported the Cincinnati schools, and has been a City Councilor. Helped by redistricting that only favored the incumbent a little bit, he took on a long time incumbent and won.
- Marcy Kaptur (OH 09) is a graduate of the labor wars of the last century. She was a member of the Catholic labor movement, and was about to be thrown out of her seat by extremely unfavorable redistricting. She would not go away quietly and has defeated the far right winner of the Republican primary.
- Emilia Sykes (OH 13) comes from a family that broke barriers for the Akron African American community. Her mother or her father has held city office for as long as she could remember. She planned not to do that work and got a PhD in psychology in Florida. Then her parents lured her back, first to run for the Ohio legislature and now for what has turned out to be a winning run for Congress.
And consider two Villains.
One from each Coast. I don’t mean the Republicans who are villainous enough – though Joe Biden just might tame them. I mean Democrats whose acts have cost us.
- Andrew Cuomo worked with a rump group of Democratic state senators to ensure that the minority Republicans controlled that body, minimizing the likelihood he would have to sign progressive legislation. His approach to the Court of Appeals (the New York State Supreme Court) was similar – packing the court with a Republican and moderate to conservative Democrats creating what turned out to be a 4-3 majority to overturn the legislature’s Congressional districts. They rejected procedural grounds for making the legislature act again and/or a reasonable delay considering how late in the process the Court was in considering the redistricting issue. What we got was a redistricting plan that was as Republican oriented as possible in overwhelmingly Democratic New York. The plan handed national Republicans the House of Representatives while Florida and Ohio were radically redistricted to favor Republicans.
- Betsy Johnson, a former Oregon Democratic state Senator unhappy with the progressive leaning of the Oregon Democratic Party. Her run for governor almost prevented the Democratic candidate for governor from winning the election and did upend Democratic candidacies for Congress, contributing to the loss of one Congressional seat and jeopardizing two others.
Take a minute. Help out those Democrats whose election is not yet resolved. First choice for help is Senator Raphael Warnock who has to face the electorate again on December 6 in a run off against football player Herschel Walker. Others need help as they oversee ballot counting and possible legal entanglements – Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Congressional candidates Jevin Hodge, Will Rollins, Adam Frisch, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. Add to that package: David Trone and Adam Gray plus Kristen Engel and Jamie McLeod-Skinner.
