ALL OF THIS IS TRUE......................AND YET..........................THE RED WAVE NEVER MATERIALIZED.
Honestly, I had been concerned about the outcome of this election ever since I started hearing all of the optimistic prognostications about a 'red wave' and winning a large majority in the House and probably taking the Senate.
Well.....not so fast. Was a defeat snatched from the jaws of victory?? I wish I knew the answer to that question, but it is so disappointing and heartbreaking that voters did not respond overwhelmingly to all the 'fruit' in the graphic above.
There wasn't a whole lot of excitement about the 2022 election here in Tennesee. As expected, Governor Bill Lee re-election with 1,128,097 votes.
Andy Ogles was successful in winning the newly drawn 5th Congressional District with 123,358 votes. The remaining eight congressional seats were won handily by the incumbents.
In the State Senate: Republican Adam Lowe handily won District 1. That is the seat from which Republican Sen. Mike Bell retired. Democrat Charlane Oliver won the seat vacated by Democrat Brenda Gilmore. Republican Brent Taylor, (a long time friend) won the seat vacated by Republican Brian Kelsey. The incumbents, many of whom had no opposition, easily won re-election. [In case you don't know, the Senators serve four-year terms and only one half of them are up for election every two years. It was the odd numbered districts that were on the ballot this year.]
In the State House: Republican Robert Stevens won the newly drawn District 13 in Rutherford County. Republican Elaine Davis won the seat being vacated by Republican Eddie Mannis, District 18. In District 20, Republican Bryan Richey won the primary, defeating Republican Bob Ramsey; Bryan was unopposed in the General. In District 24, Republican Kevin Raper won the seat vacated by Republican Mark Hall. In District 26, Republican Greg Martin won the seat vacated by Republican Robin Smith (she resigned last spring.) In District 32, Republican Monty Fritts won the seat being vacated by RepublicanKent Calfee. In District 35, Republican William Slater won the seat being vacated by Republican Jerry Sexton. In District 40, Republican Michael Hale won the seat after defeating Republican Terri Lynn Weaver in the primary. In a bit of a surprise, Democrat John Mark Windle was defeated by Republican Ed Butler. [ Story behind that: One longtime incumbent, Rep. John Mark Windle, lost his seat in House District 41. But Windle, a Democrat since he was first elected in 1991, had disaffiliated from the party earlier this year to run as an independent candidate, and his Republican opponent Ed Butler managed to knock him out of the race. ]
In District 52, Democrat Justin Jones (you might remember that name) won the seat being vacated by Democrat Mike Stewart.
In District 59, vacated by Democrat Justin Potts, a hard fought campaign, Democrat Caleb Hemmer barely defeated Republican Michelle Foreman. In District 61, Republican Gino Bulso defeated Democrat Steven Cervantes for the seat being vacated by Republican Brandon Ogles. In District 63, Republican Jame McCalmon won the seat being vacated by Republican Glen Cassada. In District 67, Democrat Ronnie Glynn won the seat being vacated by Democrat Jason Hodges. In District 69, Republican Jody Barrett won the seat being vacated by Republican Michael Curcio. In District 71, Republican Kip Capley won the seat being vacated by Republican David Byrd. In District 75, Republican Jeff Burkhart won the seat being vacated by Republican Bruce Griffey. In District 79, Republican Brock Martin won the seat being vacated by Republican Curtis Halford. In an interesting turn of events, in District 86, Democrat Barbara Cooper received almost 8,000 votes despite the fact that she passed away on October 25th at 93 years old. They will have to hold a special election for that district.
The remainder of the incumbent seats remained in the party that they had been in.
PLEASE NOTE: When I decided to do all this, I didn't know what an ordeal it would be and I surely hope I got it all right.
There's no way to sugarcoat it — Republicans got bamboozled in the midterms. All the polls that we reported showing Republican candidates surging in the final weeks of their campaigns, the race ratings from the Cook Political Report, and the overconfident statements from GOP leaders were all significantly overly optimistic about what we all watched play out on Tuesday night.
There were GOP victories — Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio in Florida, J.D. Vance in Ohio, Ted Budd in North Carolina, Brian Kemp in Georgia, Jen Kiggans in Virginia, to name a few — but conservatives were sold a false bill of goods from the leaders tasked with delivering GOP majorities. Those promising great success in order to consolidate power, in a drapes-measuring move, hoping to land a leadership position in a new Republican majority may be the worst offenders who owe the Republican electorate the most answers.
Among them are the leadership of the Republican National Committee, including Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, the chairs of the National Republican Congressional Committee — Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) — and National Republican Senatorial Committee — Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), and the House Republican Leader — Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
In an election year that favored Republicans purely for its timing as the first midterm of the Biden administration, an advantage that should have been helped by a president with chronically underwater approval, inflation above eight percent, surging crime and drug overdose crises, a wide open border, and so many more reasons, there's no reason Republican candidates should have performed as poorly as they did.
So what gives? The Republican National Committee poured money and staff into communities to bring their fight for Hispanic voters to the neighborhood level. But then Republicans like Rep. Mayra Flores — who made history with her special election victory earlier in 2022 — lost their general election races.
House GOP Leader McCarthy was setting himself up as the next Speaker of the House while campaigning to make a red tsunami happen, but it didn't. NRCC Chair Tom Emmer was positioning himself as the House Majority Whip in a GOP-led Congress. But he and the committee he led barely won enough seats to have anyone to whip as the party in power.
AOC, other 'Squad' members win landslide victories in 2022 elections
Progressive 'Squad' members projected to easily win House races during this election
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the other members of the "Squad" were re-elected Tuesday, cruising to victory in their deep-blue congressional districts by wide margins.
The Associated Press has called the races for Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
Each lawmaker represents a district that President Biden won by double digits in the 2020 election. Bowman, who represents New York's 16th Congressional District comprising parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, had the slimmest margin of victory and yet still was leading 65%-34% against Republican challenger Miriam Flisser, with more than 91% of results reporting.
"Thank you to every member of our community and every grassroots supporter for entrusting me with the great responsibility of representing NY-14 in Congress," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a victory message on Twitter. "We do this with small dollars, every time. I remain grateful to all of you who make a new kind of governance possible."
Abortion rights were on the ballot in these states. Here’s what voters decided
By Veronica Stracqualursi, Devan Cole and Paul LeBlanc, CNN Updated 6:57 AM EST, Wed November 9, 2022
WashingtonCNN —
Voters in three states moved to protect abortion rights on Tuesday, CNN projects, following a monthslong push from Democrats nationwide to act on the issue in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June.
Party lawmakers and organizers cast the midterm elections as a referendum on Republican efforts to limit women’s choices, even as voters consistently expressed more concern about issues like the economy.
“This fall, Roe is on the ballot,” President Joe Biden declared in a defiant speech from the White House just hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling.
While CNN projected some anti-abortion Republicans will win their races, voters in key states made their support for abortion rights clear through a number of ballot measures.
Here’s a running list of what voters decided on Election Day.
Michigan enshrines abortion rights
Michigan voters on Tuesday voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, a move that will help block a decades-old abortion ban from taking effect, CNN projects.
The passage of ballot Proposal 3 amends the Michigan constitution to establish an “individual right to reproductive freedom, including right to make and carry out all decisions about pregnancy.”
Michigan has a 1931 law that essentially bans abortion in the state, but that law is being blocked by the courts. The passage of the ballot proposal helps prevent the ban from taking effect.
The amendment allows the state to regulate abortion after fetal viability, except if needed to protect a patient’s life or physical or mental health. It also bars the state from prosecuting an individual for having an abortion or miscarriage or from prosecuting someone who assists a pregnant person in “exercising rights established by this amendment.”
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