When I went to vote yesterday, I was certain that nobody I voted for would win — I'm in such a blue state that I didn't really think Larry Hogan would win the Governorship even in such a Republican year. But at least it looked good for the chances of people in other states voting in new Republican Senators, and I was eagerly awaiting the Senate results.
I woke up today to find that my expectations for the Senate were fully met — it looks like the GOP will have at least 52 Senators, and the three states which are undecided could all go Republican as well, so we might end up with 55. (In Alaska, though 100% of the votes are in, for some reason they haven't called the state, though Dan Sullivan seems to have a clear plurality there. Louisiana had a plurality for the Democrat, Mary Landrieu, but their law calls for a runoff when there is no absolute majority, and Bill Cassidy could still pull it off. Only Virginia seems a close call, with Democrat Mark Warner leading Republican Ed Gillespie, so that seat was likely to end up with the Democrats.) When all is said and done, it looks like a 53- or 54-member Republican caucus. And the President is forced to settle for only those accomplishments in his last two years that he can accomplish by executive order. Unfortunately, he does have the negative power to veto, so Obamacare will not be replaced by a more sensible approach to health care reform in the short term. But his ability to further wreck the economy and hurt the country's direction will be restricted.
But the icing on the cake for me was that Larry Hogan won! I have been conceding that Anthony Brown would be our next Governor whether I wanted him to be or not, so seeing Hogan win was a pleasant surprise. It seems that whenever the Maryland Democrats nominate for the Governorship a sitting Lieutenant Governor after a Governor is term limited, then the Republicans can win. I strongly supported Hogan's bid, but never expected it to be successful. So this has been a happy election result for me.
I woke up today to find that my expectations for the Senate were fully met — it looks like the GOP will have at least 52 Senators, and the three states which are undecided could all go Republican as well, so we might end up with 55. (In Alaska, though 100% of the votes are in, for some reason they haven't called the state, though Dan Sullivan seems to have a clear plurality there. Louisiana had a plurality for the Democrat, Mary Landrieu, but their law calls for a runoff when there is no absolute majority, and Bill Cassidy could still pull it off. Only Virginia seems a close call, with Democrat Mark Warner leading Republican Ed Gillespie, so that seat was likely to end up with the Democrats.) When all is said and done, it looks like a 53- or 54-member Republican caucus. And the President is forced to settle for only those accomplishments in his last two years that he can accomplish by executive order. Unfortunately, he does have the negative power to veto, so Obamacare will not be replaced by a more sensible approach to health care reform in the short term. But his ability to further wreck the economy and hurt the country's direction will be restricted.
But the icing on the cake for me was that Larry Hogan won! I have been conceding that Anthony Brown would be our next Governor whether I wanted him to be or not, so seeing Hogan win was a pleasant surprise. It seems that whenever the Maryland Democrats nominate for the Governorship a sitting Lieutenant Governor after a Governor is term limited, then the Republicans can win. I strongly supported Hogan's bid, but never expected it to be successful. So this has been a happy election result for me.
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