The House of Representatives switched majorities from the Democrat party to the Republican party. At this point, there are 240 Republican seats and 184 Democrat seats, with eleven seats undecided (those races haven't been called yet). The Republicans gained 60+ seats. John Boehner (R-Ohio) will become the next Speaker of the House, replacing Nancy Pelosi (D-California).
The Senate is still controlled by Democrats. At this point, there are 51 Democrat seats and 46 Republican seats, with 3 seats undecided. Republicans picked up 6 seats that were previously Democrat (in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). However, their goal to take over the Senate fell short as Democrat Chris Coons defeated Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell in Delaware (57% to 40%), Joe Manchin kept the West Virginia seat that was previously held by the late Robert Byrd in Democrat hands (53% to 43%), and Harry Reid (the Senate Majority Leader) defeated Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle and held on to his seat in Nevada (50% to 45%).
Here are the results of some other closely-watched elections:
Barbara Boxer (D-California) held on to her seat and defeated Carly Fiorina (the Republican candidate that was the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard). 52% to 42%
Richard Blumenthal (D) defeated Linda McMahon (the Republican candidate that was the former CEO for World Wrestling Entertainment) in the Connecticut race for the seat vacated by Senator Chris Dodd (D). 54% to 44%.
In Arkansas, John Boozman (R) defeated the incumbent Blanche Lincoln (D). I guess Arkansas wasn't happy with Lincoln (she got 37% of the vote), despite the fact that Blanche Lincoln could run pretty conservative at times and was a road block for Democrats on some important votes. 58% to 37%
In Florida, Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio (R) won the seat vacated by Senator Mel Martinez (R). Rubio defeated Charlie Crist (the Florida governor that ran as an Independent after he was defeated by Rubio in the Republican primary) and Kendrick Meek (D). Rubio got 49%, Crist got 30%, Meek got 20%.
In Illinois, Mark Kirk (R) defeated Alex Giannoulias (D) for the seat held by Barack Obama before he became president. 48% to 46%.
In Kentucky, Tea Party favorite Rand Paul (son of Ron Paul) beat Jack Conway (D), 56% to 44%.
In Pennsylvania, Tea Party favorite Pat Toomey (R) beat Joe Sestak for the seat that was held by Senator Arlen Specter (he was elected as a Republican, and was a Republican senator for 28 years; then in 2009 he switched to the Democrat party. He was up for re-election this year and he lost to Sestak in the Democratic Primary).
In the Alaska senate race, which is not yet decided, Lisa Murkowski (in a write-in campaign) appears to be winning. With 99% of precincts reporting, 41% of the votes are write-ins, 34% is for tea party favorite Joe Miller (R), and 24% is for Scott McAdams (D). Lisa Murkowski is the incumbent. She lost in the Republican primary to Miller, but she decided to continue to run and launched a write-in campaign. Though she was not selected as her state's Republican nominee, she still calls herself a Republican. She said that if she wins she intends to caucus with the Republicans, just as she did when she was the Republican senator. Officials in Alaska must now verify how many of the write-in votes are for Murkowski. Counting could take weeks. If Murkowski wins, she will be the first U.S. senator to be elected by write-in vote since 1954 (when Strom Thurmond was elected via write-in).
I'm not surprised by the results at all, it's pretty much what I expected. Often times the president's party loses seats in the mid-term election (especially if they're in charge of Congress). Plus, these are hard times to be in charge. Due to an inherited mess and absolute terrible timing, Obama and the Democratically-controlled Congress took office when the economy was tanked, we were in a massive recession, and unemployment was rising. Americans, unfortunately, have unrealistic ideas about what progress can happen in x amount of time. It doesn't help that Obama says perfectly reasonable things like unemployment would be at 12% now without the work his administration has done, because Americans are looking at the 9.6% unemployment rate and want it to magically be decreased down to 5% in a short amount of time. They want big, obvious results. And that's not always possible or realistic.
I'm not surprised by the results at all, it's pretty much what I expected. Often times the president's party loses seats in the mid-term election (especially if they're in charge of Congress). Plus, these are hard times to be in charge. Due to an inherited mess and absolute terrible timing, Obama and the Democratically-controlled Congress took office when the economy was tanked, we were in a massive recession, and unemployment was rising. Americans, unfortunately, have unrealistic ideas about what progress can happen in x amount of time. It doesn't help that Obama says perfectly reasonable things like unemployment would be at 12% now without the work his administration has done, because Americans are looking at the 9.6% unemployment rate and want it to magically be decreased down to 5% in a short amount of time. They want big, obvious results. And that's not always possible or realistic.
In addition, Republicans went into this past Congressional session with a genius, but also a very asshole strategy. They decided they were going to do absolutely nothing. They were going to be the Party of No. Their whole goal was to obstruct, to not compromise, and then point out how Democrats aren't doing anything to fix the problems. Unfortunately, Americans are not as adept when it comes to congressional rules. All they hear is that a Democrat is president and Congress is controlled by Democrats, and so if they can't get anything done, it's their own damn fault. However, in a bicameral Congress, both houses need to pass bills for something to become law. This is quite difficult to do, especially as bills get held up in the Senate so much. Although Democrats control the Senate, they don't have a solid 60 votes. Without 60, Republicans can hold up legislation with a filibuster (it takes 60 votes to end a filibuster). The use of the filibuster has been astronomical this session; it's been abused to an absolutely ridiculous level. So blame cannot squarely lie on Democrats for not getting things done, because they've been unable to get things done.
Of course there is fault with the Democrats for not winning more seats. Democrats did not come in to this election with a very strong strategy. There needed to be a much greater effort to let the American public know how much they have in fact achieved, despite the foot-dragging, obstructionist efforts of Republicans. Democrats needed to reassure America of the progress they have made, and that progress will continue to be made, but it doesn't happen as quickly as we would like. They needed to draw more attention to the fact that Republicans have done nothing thus far and that they do not have any real plan for progress. (I recommend this great Steven Pearlstein op-ed piece).
I'm also disappointed with low voter-turnout, especially among young people. I know voting in a mid-term election isn't very cool, especially when someone hip and popular like Obama isn't running for president. And young people feel disillusioned, like Obama hasn't done what he set out to do. Once again, I don't think many people realize all the stuff that Obama and Congress have in fact done. Unfortunately, people do not follow the news very closely (to hear all these things that are being done. Democrats certainly aren't making them obvious) or know how the political system works and what can and cannot be achieved in two years. Also, people seem surprised to learn that Obama is rather centrist. But that's exactly how he ran. He isn't liberal enough for me, most Congresspeople are not liberal enough for me. Unfortunately, a very liberal agenda is not really possible with our current political system and political culture. Maybe people thought the political culture would drastically change with a new president, but it takes more than just the president (and as I mentioned, Obama is pretty center-left or centrist). With health care reform, I would have loved to see universal health care and single-payer system, but I know how difficult that actually is to achieve right now. I was unhappy with the health care reform bill getting watered down as a result of compromise after compromise, but that's not to take away how monumental of a change it was. The fact that it was able to pass is an indication of how hard Democrats worked for it and how dedicated they were to reform. It's not perfect reform, but it is in fact something. When Social Security was first passed, it didn't look like what it does now. It took years of changes and additions. Health care and the health insurance industry is not going to drastically change overnight, it will take time and this reform was a good first step. Of course I would have liked to see more stuff get done these past two years, but considering the political and economic environment, I am impressed with what they have passed.
I wish voters would have given the Democrats (at least) two more years to finish what they started. I wish Democrats would have gained more Senate seats so that they had 60 votes. Then it would have been great to see what they really could have achieved, despite the Republicans. However, the upside of the Republicans winning the House is that now they actually have to do something. It's really easy to do nothing and to criticize, it's more difficult to actually come up with solutions and legislation. They ducked out of taking any responsibility for the first two years, but now they're going to have to at least share responsibility in these upcoming years. It's time for them to actually do their job now.
In terms of individual politicians, I am sad that John Boehner will be replacing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. I think Pelosi is a very smart and strong leader. She gets shit done. I know she was the big target of Republicans (and Tea Party people) and they love nothing more than to "fire her" (they love saying that, despite the fact that she is not actually fired. She's still an elected Representative in Congress, her party just isn't in power anymore and thus she's no longer the Speaker. Pelosi has done a great job, it's the other colleagues of hers that lost their seats, and thus affected the majority). I definitely believe that the strong conservative hatred directed towards Pelosi (more so than is directed towards Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) is a result of Pelosi being a strong, powerful woman. And that scares the shit out of these conservatives. Just as the election of a black president really got some conservative people going.
I'm also really sad to see Senator Russ Feingold go. He was the incumbent Democratic senator from Wisconsin. He was an amazing progressive senator, and I think Wisconsin will be at a loss in the wake of his absence. He championed campaign finance reform (for instance, the McCain-Feingold Act, which the recent Supreme Court pretty much gutted with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission), he was the only senator to have the courage to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act after 9/11, he was one of the 28 senators to vote against the war in Iraq, he supports the legalization of same-sex marriage, he advocates universal health care, he is strongly against capital punishment, and he is against wasteful government spending. For instance, worked to reduce pork barreling and lobbyists' influence, he promised not to accept pay raises while in office (he returned over $70,000 in raises to the U.S. Treasury), and returned money left over from his office budget (since 1993, he returned $3.2 million from his office budget back to the U.S. Treasury). He will be missed.
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