Midterm Malarkey: The Red Wave That Wasn't
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to the seventeenth edition of Waco Can’t Wait, a progressive newsletter focusing on McLennan County, Texas, and Federal politics. I have been deep in the trenches of Practice Court at Baylor Law School for the last three and a half months, and I finally have enough time to write a newsletter again. It feels really good to get back to the keyboard, and I appreciate y’all’s patience.
Somewhere between 200+ pages of reading per night, my wife informed me that there was an election going on. I decided a good way to get things going again would be to take a look at the election results at the local, state, and federal level, while also providing some of my takeaways. I hope the information I provide will spark some interesting conversations with your conservative uncle over the Thanksgiving holiday!
United States
I am going to start out of order and lead with the good news. While pundits and Republicans were predicting a Red Wave on par with the Blue Wave in 2018, the Roe Wave seems to have materialized. Instead of Republicans flipping the House and Senate, Democrats have narrowly held onto the Senate, and Republicans are forecasted to have a slim house majority.
In the Senate, Democrats have secured the 50 seats they need to retain the Senate Majority (with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the final vote in the event of a 50-50 tie). The only unresolved senate seat, in Georgia, has gone to a runoff between Democratic Senator Rafael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. Election Day for this runoff will be December 6th, and Walker will not have the benefit of other statewide Republican candidates boosting turnout.
In the House, Republicans have won a (narrow) majority. At the moment, the called races have Democrats at 212 seats and Republicans at 218 seats. With a Republican majority secured in the House, Republicans have been quick to lay out their legislative priorities:
Due to the underwhelming performance, there is an ongoing fight over what Republican leadership will look like at the start of next year. This infighting from Republicans may come in handy for Democrats in the 2024 cycle, especially when you consider how many Republicans are in seats that Biden won in 2020:
At the state
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