Mr. Trump’s presidency has delivered what those voters wanted on policy, the economy and the judiciary. But exit polls and Tuesday’s suburban results suggest he hasn’t delivered what many of them want in a presidential persona.
Category Archives: Mid Term Elections
Ocasio-Cortez Dances Around Party Leadership
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A star is born in the Democratic party and the leadership is worried. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has an agenda that calls for free college, free healthcare, and a 70% income tax on the wealthy. She also wants to totally eliminate fossil fuels as well as the party’s fossil leadership. And she has some nice dance moves.
The media can’t get enough of it.
The party’s millennial base has moved left. Too far left to to win elections fear its baby boom elders. “I certainly hope she’s not the future and I don’t believe she is,” says Joe Lieberman.
AOC’s response, “New party, who dis?”
Politico’s Rachel Blade and Heather Caygle take a look at the party split here in “Exasperated Democrats try to rein in Ocasio-Cortez.”
Meanwhile, WSJ editor Gerard Baker thinks “she may be one of the most important political figures of our age.”
Hanging With Chad
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The Democrats dispatched Marc Elias to oversee the Florida recount. The same guy the Hillary campaign hired to dispute Trump’s 2016 election win. And that gave us Fusion GPS and the dubious Steele Dossier.
Chad
Now he’s hoping to trigger a hand recount in Florida. And that’s something the WSJ says could become “hanging chads, the sequel.”
Some Things Never Change
Democrat’s Suburban Shift
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David Montgomery at CityLab has a killer map showing suburban congressional districts represented by Democrats. They’re a big chunk of the country. And he says almost all of the 33 seats Democrats picked up on Tuesday were in suburban districts:
Democrats retook the House of Representatives on the back of a suburban surge Tuesday, remaking a once rock-ribbed Republican bastion into a Democratic stronghold.
Though some districts remained undecided Wednesday afternoon, Democrats had picked up at least 33 seats in Congress, almost all of them predominantly suburban. These suburban districts, once closely divided, are now twice as likely to be represented by a Democrat than by a Republican. Democrats even lost some seats in rural areas, but picked up at least 22 seats that CityLab’s Congressional Density Indexclassifies as “sparse suburban” or “dense suburban.” Add that to Democrat gains in almost all of the remaining Republican-held districts with major urban populations and you have a new, blue majority.
Suburban Shift
Here’s what some others have to say about the Democrat’s suburban shift.
The reality is that Mr. Trump’s 2016 “base” included many traditional, suburban Republicans. Some voted for him, some against Hillary Clinton and some for a conservative Supreme Court majority.
Democrats have won back control of the House of Representatives, slicing through Republican-held suburbs where President Donald Trump has proven toxic to undo a Republican majority once thought to be impervious until the next round of redistricting.
And Trump should be terrified that Democrat Stacey Abrams won 56% of Gwinnett County, with 920,000 people the largest suburban county in Georgia, in the state’s still-undecided governor’s race. Gwinnett rarely if ever voted Democratic for president before Hillary Clinton, who won 51%, and has grown by 115,000 people since 2010. Nearby Cobb County,with 755,000 people and Newt Gingrich’s old geographic base, gave Abrams almost 54%.
Trump Investigations
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Predicted waves of blue or red didn’t break on election day. Republicans extended their hold on the Senate by a seat or two but lost control of the House. That could mean more Trump investigations. And that might be enough to cause the president a little sea sickness.
He warned House Democrats against a “war-like” posture. But a peaceful Pelosi says impeachment isn’t in the cards.
