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61 thoughts on “Democrats keep control of the Senate”

  1. Toofbew

    In the House, it seems like it was not a smart idea to primary Jaime Herrera-Beutler. After Jaime, a so-called “moderate” Republican who voted with the MAGA crowd about 85% of the time and had an A rating from the NRA, told the truth about Kevin McCarthy’s phone call with Trump on January 6, 2021, they primaried her and set up MAGA Joe Kent, a cute former Navy Seal, to run for the seat. Joe claims Biden is not really the president. He wants to “take back America.”

    It looked like a shoo-in, as the Washington 3rd Congressional District, which includes Vancouver and a large mostly rural area, has long been majority Republican. Jaime beat a strong Democratic candidate, Carolyn Long, two elections running in 2018 and 2020. In 2016 Trump won here by a large margin. Trump took a personal interest in Joe Kent and raised money for him at Mar-a-Lago.

    But something happened on the way to a MAGA victory in WA-3: Kent was beat by a neophyte Democrat named Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, co-operator with her husband of a Vancouver auto repair shop. The Seattle Times, ABC, CNN, and NY Times have called the race for Perez, flipping our district to the D column. There is joy in mudville this evening. Go, Marie!

    2. J. Frank Parnell

      Traditionally the district has been a bit purple. Democrat Brian Baird served six terms as their representative from 1999 to 2011. The Republicans ran a bat shit crazy MAGA man and thought they could win. Typical Republican incompetence.

      1. Toofbew

        Thanks for the correction. I moved here 8 years ago. The first bumper sticker I saw in the neighborhood was “NOT a liberal.”

    4. Kalimac

      According to Perez's statement in the news report in the twitter feed linked to above, she lives in Skamania County, which is why she calls herself a rural Democrat. Her auto shop is in Portland, across the Oregon border. A lot of people who live in that part of Washington state work in Portland, so that's no surprise.

    6. Jerry O'Brien

      Unfortunately, somewhat similar things happen the other way, too. Kurt Schrader's likely hold on Oregon-5 was blown up when the centrist Democrat was beaten in this year's primary by progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who has now lost the seat to Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

  2. bebopman

    Maybe best of all, this increased the chaos in the Republican Party. Can we have a contest for the name of Trump’s new party? Maybe there will be an insurrection at the gop caucus to choose new leaders. If McCarthy is somehow denied the speakership, after all the groveling and how low he sunk, I won’t stop laughing for days. Turtle Man losing his senate perch? Be still my heart.

    1. kenalovell

      Murdoch has switched his support from Trump to DeSantis. The ramifications will not become clear for months. but liberals should do everything they can to hammer the wedge.

      2. realrobmac

        I think people outside the state of Florida will be surprised when he runs for president what a dull and unappealing guy DeSantis is. He has no personality. I give him about 0% chance of winning the Republican nomination.

    2. Marlowe

      I have a nomination for the name of Unser Drumpfenfuhrer's new party: National Socialist American Workers' Party. It just sounds ... right. It's sort of long though, there must be a shorter, catchier anacronym that'll work; I'm sure it will come to me if I think long enough.

    3. cld

      What does he usually name things after?

      But in this case I think we could help out, perhaps Bar-a-Lardo, or The High Tide of Dignity?

  3. kenalovell

    Senate Democrats should put McCarthy on notice of this, if he becomes Speaker: should House Republicans start a baseless fishing expedition into the business affairs of private citizen Hunter Biden, members of the Trump family including the Kushner boy can expect to spend many, many hours being interrogated by Senate committees about ways they have enriched themselves and/or Trump himself since January 2017 by exploiting their connections to the former president.

    2. haddockbranzini

      I think the GOP would jump on that deal. Get to make the base happy by going after Hunter and further "unintentionally" weaken Trump a little more.

    3. J. Frank Parnell

      Let them waste their time investigating Hunter. Voters understand many families have been seriously affected by drug abuse. Hunter is one sad dude who has attempted to profit from his last name, but the idea that he is at the center of some larger conspiracy is just another stupid MAGA QANON conspiracy theory.

    4. lawnorder

      One would hope that the Senate would conduct whatever investigations seem called for without descending into petty vexatiousness.

        1. TheMelancholyDonkey

          If the Republicans end up with a majority in the House, there won't be much of a Senate agenda for them to have a stranglehold on. Both have been just fine when it comes to confirming judicial and executive nominations.

    4. Altoid

      Could seeing how AZ voters repudiated MAGA have some effect on Sinema? Like realizing she won't need to cover her right flank there quite so energetically? Or is she too far down the Tulsi Gabbard trail to hang more with the rest of the Ds?

      Regardless, I've been incredibly relieved that those two caucus as Dems even if they've been bad for the country in many ways. But if Warnock wins next month she'll be the single focal point of the most intense pressures imaginable and we'll all find out just how different her drummer really is.

  7. CalStateDisneyland

    If the GOP takes the House nonetheless, there are 3 important things it must do:

    1. Investigate Hunter Biden's laptop.
    2. Impeach Joe Biden.
    3. Pass a bill criminalizing abortion nationwide.

    1. Joel

      I certainly hope they try all those things. It would guarantee a blue wave in 2024, as Americans have already shown they're sick and tired of an extremist GOP with no agenda that helps them.

    2. golack

      and don't forget, crash the economy....they are running on not increase the debt ceiling...
      plus privatize Social Security and Medicaid plus the VA....

        1. tigersharktoo

          #6 Massive tax cuts for their donor class and Corporations.

          (Because tax cuts like those always pay for themselves.)

    3. Salamander

      These, and all the reasons responders have enumerated below, is why Josh Marshall over at talkingpointsmemo suggests that having the Rs take the House by just a few seats might be the best of both worlds.

      It would be clear even to American voters why "the Democrats did NOTHING!" over the next two years. And it would clarify exactly what Republicans were for -- and against.

      The nation would probably suffer, but hey. Voting has consequences. So does not voting.

      1. seymourbeardsmore

        What? Are you saying 68 is young or something? And I wouldn’t say Sotomayor looks like the picture of health. Justices should be forced to retire when they hit 70.

      2. ResumeMan

        Huh? What are you talking about? Yes, they happen to both be women. So what? I was *somewhat* receptive to that argument when people were just pushing RBG to retire back when. But last I looked Breyer is not a woman. And he got a *much* stronger push than RBG ever did.

        It's reasonable to say they shouldn't be expected to step down, since they're not that old (though I don't think Sotomayor is perfectly healthy). But it may be a loooong time before Dems have both the senate and the WH, so it isn't completely crazy.

        But it definitely isn't sexist.

        1. Joel

          Last I looked, Breyer is not a member of SCOTUS.

          I don't know whether Sotomayor is "perfectly healthy," but I don't have any evidence that she isn't healthy enough to continue for another decade or two. Do you?

          So yes, asking the two liberal justices to step down now, when both are women, is sexist. Check your privilege.

  9. sonofthereturnofaptidude

    If the election analyst at the NYT is to be believed, it was Dobbs and election denialism that drove things off the rails for the GOP.

  10. MattBallAZ

    PS: Let us all praise Andrew Cuomo, who appointed the conservative NY Supreme Court justices that threw out the Dems' redistricting map.
    Thanks again, Andy.

  12. Brett

    Excellent.

    Now we just need to win Warnock's seat again as well to get 51. That allows us to eliminate the need for Sinema AND Manchin to support everything, and lets the more at-risk Senators take occasional "no" votes without killing whatever bill it is.

  13. cld

    Democrats still need to bring this home, victory isn't enough by itself, we need to keep campaigning as if Election Day were always a week away.

    Conservatism is evil enough by itself but MAGA isn't dead, what is the House going to look like with Speaker Jungle Jim Jordan?

    They may act like they want to 'get past Donald Trump', but that's only so they can find a Trump less ludicrous and more effective.

  14. Citizen99

    Holy mackerel! Perez really has the secret sauce. She sounds so relaxed and sharp. If this was scripted, there is no hint of it being rehearsed, and if she was just winging it, that's even more amazing! And her message was really potent, taking on the way Republicans have DEFINED Democrats so fearlessly. Looks like she is doing everything the professional spin doctors say NOT to do, which I think will really impress cynical voters.

  15. Dana Decker

    If the GOP takes the House with a 3 seat majority, Will Kevin will celebrate the Democrats failure to oppose 2010's Proposition 20* which took House redistricting away from the legislature, giving it to a non-partisan commission. If California could Gerrymander like so many red states do today, it might have wrangled an additional 3 seats this year, keeping the majority and the January 6 Commission alive. Or maybe they prefer to preen their moral superiority while losing power. A party like that deserves all the misfortune it gets.

    Why are the Democrats so stupid? They also nominate for lifetime SCOTUS seats, people 5 years older than the GOP (55 vs 50). That limits options for strategic retirement. What the hell is the matter with this party? Are they - despite proclaiming support for STEM - unable to do Math? Apparently so. And the math they are struggling with isn't calculus, it's simple addition!

    * every newspaper except the Sacramento Bee supported "good government" Proposition 20. The Bee correctly noted that it was foolish for one state to make redistricting nonpartisan while other states don't.

    2. Jim Carey

      Bob Dylan's advice is don't criticize what you can't understand. Ironically, people that can't understand his advice don't follow his advice. And yet it's still worth planting a seed.

    3. Jasper_in_Boston

      Every Dem-run state that can redistrict before the 2024 election should immediately do so. Just say "no" to unilateral disarmament.

    4. FreakyBeaky

      Independent redistricting gave Michigan Democrats the State lege, as it should have. Just saying.

      Maybe it's not the party that is "stupid." Maybe it's the voters. Gerrymandering is sleazy, corrupt, undemocratic bullshit and people everywhere hate it. Any political party anywhere that becomes dependent on gerrymandering deserves to lose. California, for one state, is better off without it.

  17. Ogemaniac

    Fun fact: looking at the new Senate cycle and the last fifteen, Republicans have controlled nine of the sixteen sessions, but only received more votes over the rolling six years leading up to a session twice, in 1998 and 2002.

    Disclaimer: independents are lumped with who they causus with, and Californian jungle primaries handled by substituting the presidential or governor vote totals, if necessary.

  19. shapeofsociety

    The real winners are the voters of Georgia, who will have to suffer a smaller bombardment of political ads in the next few weeks now that control of the Senate does not hinge on them. It'll still be hotly contested, but not completely insane.

    With that said: GO WARNOCK!

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