Noteably, it was a crazy night but with the majority of the votes counted, some changes did take place. First, the Democrats took the House of Representatives and second, the Republicans took a few more seats than they had in the Senate making a Republican majority. Before I write in my own observations, what do the changes mean to you guys?
To be honest, probably not too much for me. I vote republican but I'm more right in the middle in my views especially the social ones. I just woke up and havent really even looked at the news yet, so my answer might change a little but I doubt it. The news that the democrats took the house didn't surprise me though, I was kind of expecting that...I think even Trump was.
I agree with Chrissy for people like me it's just two more years of blue jeans and beans. IMO it was a classic rebalancing of our government that will always help maintain a healthy amount of friction in the system and not allow one group to assume too much power. I do hope that the focus going forward is one of working together to resolve issues and not two years of investigations centered on Trump and his family. We'll see!
I'm fine with the results. I think, contrary to speculations last night, the sky won't fall, things may even calm down some now. When one "side" is completely powerless it leads to frustration, and causes hysteria. Just my gut feeling. Off the top of my head, I was glad Joe Manchin held his seat in West Virginia, and will be sorry if Jon Tester loses his seat in Montana. Both are moderates. We need more of those on both sides I think. Thankful that we won't have to listen to Rand Paul pretend to try to make up his mind on every vote in the Senate now.
My first observation is that the election results might be a really good thing for the American people or at least from one standpoint it might be. The new members of the House will not take over until January 3, 2019. With the changes looming over the present House, it might serve as a boot in the rears of those republican members who have stymied the progress of some proposed bills that have been sitting around and collecting dust. Maybe, just maybe the House will start being a bit more productive for the next month. Dunno
Locally...our new Governor (D) is the ex husband of Trump jr's girlfriend. I'd rather have had a Republican as governor but I'm just glad that Jerry Brown is gone. I wasn't sure how to spell her last name but I'm sure you know who I'm talking about...Kimberly who used to be on Fox.
Guilfoyle? I know that she ran before a few years ago but I really wasn’t aware that she was even in the running. Wow!! She’s lovely and smart but I really didn’t think she had it in her to run again much less actually take the governorship! I really have to go look that up and see what kind of race it was........ Be back in a while. Sorry. Gavin Newsom (dem) won the governorship. But, the good news is indeed wonderful because Brown couldn’t run again so he’s gone.
No...her ex husband won...not her. She's a republican. Sorry..it was a convoluted sentence...all because I couldn't remember how to spell her last name. Also, couldn't think of the new governors name either, lol Next time before I post, I'll have my facts straight. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...emocrat-Gavin-Newsom-governor-California.html
Naw, you’re doing good Chrissy. California politics are such that if anything really made sense then it wouldn’t be California. In short, I got confused too....
What really changed? Dems control the house, but getting dems to agree on something is akin to herding cats. If the current projections hold, only 11 dems voting with a unified republican group can block a lot of stuff. How many blue dog dems remain in the house? A lot of investigations will ensue, which will provide political fodder, but the dems need to be careful not to project a revenge agenda. Impeachment talk will abound, but likely cannot muster the majority required in the house... even if it were to get out of the judicial committee, which is the most sharply divided in the entire house. Republicans appear to have gained a couple of senate seats, thus smoothing the path for judical nominations as well as easier blocking of house proposals. Dems might be able to block some of the Trump's domestic agenda, so a continuation of E.O.s and court challenges will continue unabated. As for foreign policy and trade policies, Congress is largely unable to block anything and the Dems must be careful with any message in opposition, imo. The really big thing that has changed is the talk of 2018 elections. It's all about 2020 now. One other thing that changed. The local news can go back to reporting local crime, accidents, etc. unless I am expected to believe that very few of these incidents took place the past week. And with all the hot air out of the way, a blast of cold weather is upon us in my area.
I am saddened by the fact that the Republicans lost the House, not because they were doing much of anything, but because of all the crazy stuff we're likely to see from the Democrat majority. However, Clinton and Obama both lost more House seats in their first midterm elections. Not that this helps, but it does put it into perspective. On the positive side, it looks like the Republicans are going to gain seats in the Senate, and the Senate is needed to confirm the several empty federal judge seats that our current Senate has been holding off on, and of course the Senate will be needed to confirm any new Supreme Court Justice seats that might come up. Yes, I know that it has been a Republican majority Senate that has been holding them up, but I think we did get rid of most of the Never-Trumpers who were occupying Senate seats. Hopefully, the new Senate will move these confirmations along. In both the Senate and the House, many of the Republicans who lost were those who distanced themselves from Trump, or who came out against him over and over. There is also the possibility that an emboldened Democrat House will spend the next two years doing crazy stuff that might be helpful in 2020.
Maine's only incumbent US House member, Bruce Poliquin, has distanced himself from Trump, except to jump in front of a camera to complain whenever he didn't like the tone of something Trump said, or to complain about his tweets. Although he generally voted better than some of the more rabid Never-Trumpers, he tried to play both sides. With 78% of the vote in, Poliquin has 116,743 votes to the Democrat's 116,563 votes, each with 46% of the vote. Although Poliquin has been ahead all along, at one time his lead was in the single digits. The problem is that, due to a dumb-ass citizen's referendum that passed, we have something called Ranked-Choice voting. We are asked to give our 2nd and 3rd choices when we vote. This means that if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, they go to the 2nd choices of any other candidates who are in the race. In this case, there are two others. One has 14,482 votes (6%) and the other has 6,013 (2%). Both are liberal, so people who voted for them probably chose the Democrat as their second choice, which would give the Democrat the win despite having gotten fewer votes.
Every President in recent years has lost seats in their first midterm except Bush 43 since he had 9-11 on his side. As @Ken Anderson said, the only real downside is that the Dems are now prepared to pepper Trump with subpoenas and investigations in an attempt to paralyze the administration. Nancy Pelosi is a little wacky person who gets confused when she speaks away from a prompter, something like Obama does but worse. California has been a Democrat stronghold since Reagan pushed amnesty for illegals in the '80s, but it was a Republican stronghold prior to that. I think there have been Republican governors once or twice, but they have been very liberal in their politics.