The past twelve hours have been horrific. Not only has Donald Trump handily won the presidential election, Republicans have won the Senate and there are 42 House races which are too close to call. Bob Casey Jr might lose his senate seat in Pennsylvania. Democrat Elissa Slotkin is trailing by a few thousand votes in Michigan. Tammy Baldwin might win in Wisconsin, even though that state voted for Trump. Ted Cruz won reelection. Sherrod Brown lost in Ohio. Jacky Rosen is losing in Nevada. Republican Kari Lake might lose in Arizona. So… there will be a Republican majority in the Senate, we just don’t know how big. It’s insane that Donald Trump literally had no campaign infrastructure on the ground ANYWHERE and yet he has these kinds of coattails, to the point where voters in dozens of states voted Republican across the board. Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that she believes Democrats will retake the House. I’m not so sure.
There are already people throwing conspiracies out into the world. While there was absolutely voter suppression and election interference – more on that in a moment – when you look at what was happening across the board in suburban areas and within the demographics of the shockingly broad “Trump coalition,” we have to admit that this was a Republican sweep. This was Americans in dozens of states going all-in on fascism and stupidity. This was an electorate completely rejecting Kamala Harris and Democratic candidates, nearly across the board.
Do I also think that some weird and criminal sh-t went down? Of course. Russian operatives were literally sending in bomb threats to Georgia polling stations. Various Republican governors were successful in their usual voter suppression tactics. Republicans were literally burning ballots and harassing election workers. But honestly, Trump’s margins show that people really came out to vote for him and every Republican.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.