The Fog

Editor: During last Tuesday’s mid-term elections in the United States, many people got caught in the fog of expectations and emotions and failed to recognize the epic defeat Trump and his Republicans suffered. 

Georgia, Florida, and Texas had high profile races that Democrats lost or were losing. That produced the fog. But stone cold political analysis would have informed the astute observer that Democrats were in fact over performing in those states which were Republican strongholds. That meant in swing districts Republicans could be wiped out. That is precisely what happened. 

And now we also know that in Nevada, Arizona, Montana, and West Virginia Republicans lost Senate seats they were expecting to win in hard core Republican strongholds or in the instance of Nevada a place where the incumbent was a Republican. Hence, instead of Democrats in the Senate falling from 49 to 43 in number, they will now only fall to 47 making it much easier to re-claim the Senate in 2020.

Bottom line: Democrats destroyed the Republicans in the House, limited Democratic losses on hostile Senate terrain, and reclaimed massive territory on the gubernatorial and state level races.  It was a political earthquake that is now before us.

Garrey Michael Dennie