It Was a Split Decision

We lost the House and gained critical seats in the Senate. Trump made the difference in key Senate races but history and “normal” anti-incumbent Presidential trends took down the House. One more key factor is that for the first time in history, from the day of the President’s election, the progressive left financed, organized and encouraged a “professional resistance”. Never before in the history of this Republic has the “opposition” been so determined and funded to create an astro-turfed opposition.

The fact that a record number of House Republicans retired didn’t help. The fact that the Democrats focused their message on “anti-Trump” and “health care” helped galvanize their voters across the country. The fact that liberal billionaires pumped in more money against swing House Republican races were tough to match. And the fact that the left was willing to say and do whatever it took to win (see Broward County) is something they should be ashamed of.

Traditionally, most believe there should have been a huge “blue wave” that ended up being a “blue tickle” given the split decision.

I share the disappointment of many that we lost several Republican Governors and state legislative bodies around the country.

Record turnouts and post-election analysis will be important to study and understand. I’m confident we’ll be back!

Looking to 2020: A crazy House Democratic Majority may be EXACTLY what America needs to see the difference between practical Republican results (jobs, economy, health care, regulatory reform, etc) and the Democrats strategy of resist.

There is much to be done and the President along with his Republican allies will have to compromise on much and look for common ground. But I think the progressive left will have a hard time giving up on their strategy of resistance and obstruction…and hopefully, the American people will see through their gamesmanship.

God Bless America and particularly all our veterans.

-Saul Anuzis

Lame Duck Congress Still Ruled By GOP Until 2019 — Why Not Get Something Done?

With the end of the midterm elections, most people in Washington are looking forward to the next Congress, which begins in January. But the current one, led by Republicans, still has a just under a couple of months to go. Is there anything they can do?

On the surface, it doesn’t seem so. The GOP lost the House, after all.

And yet, maneuvering is already taking place by both the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans following the midterm elections. The election is a reminder that some House Republicans may be out of a job, but Trump isn’t.

With Congress divided, Republicans face two years of bitter battles between the Senate, which they control, and the House, which Democrats control. So the GOP can say goodbye to getting any major legislation passed through 2020. That makes the next two months, the so-called lame duck session, even more important than usual.

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Here Are the Trailblazing Republican Women Who Made History on Tuesday Night

The 2018 midterms have ended, but the effects of the results had permanent impacts on the country’s history.

Republican women changed history by becoming some of the first females to represent their constituents. They ran campaigns that resonated with the citizens of their states and districts, and they showed that women can stand with conservative values.

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The 2018 midterm vote: Divisions by race, gender, education

The stark demographic and educational divisions that have come to define American politics were clearly evident in voting preferences in the 2018 congressional elections.

There were wide differences in voting preferences between men and women, whites and nonwhites, as well as people with more and less educational attainment.

Nationally, voters favored Democratic candidates for Congress over Republican candidates by a margin of about 7 percentage points, according to a preliminary estimate by The New York Times. (With votes still being tabulated in some states, this margin may change.) Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since 2010, while Republicans appear to have added to their majority in the Senate.

The gender gap in voting preference is not new, but it is at least as wide as at any point over the past two decades, according to exit polls by the National Election Pool, as reported by CNN. Women favored the Democratic candidate in their district by 19 percentage points (59% to 40%) while men voted for the Republican 51% to 47%. (The exit polls offer the first look at the electorate; the portrait will be refined over time as additional data, such as state voter files, become available).

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Asian, Muslim and Latino immigrants across U.S. helped Trump and GOP win

Over the past few months, Trump initiated a “zero tolerance” policy that led to migrant children being separated from their parents at the border, gave alarming and unsubstantiated warnings about a caravan of migrants coming from Central America, threatened to eliminate birthright citizenship and retweeted a racially charged video linking a convicted murderer to immigrants and the Democratic Party.

The tough talk didn’t seem to chase away immigrant voters in significant numbers. On Tuesday, Democrats got about 68 percent of the Latino vote, slightly higher than the 66 percent won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, while Republicans garnered 30 percent of their vote, just above the 28 percent Trump earned two years ago, according to exit polling.

Asian voters sided with Democrats 77 percent of the time in Tuesday’s elections, and Republicans received 23 percent of their vote, the exit polling showed.

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An Interesting Article – Failed dream of political Islam

If Islamism is not the solution, then what is? The Arab Spring gave the beginning of an answer: democratic politics, popular sovereignty and the reclamation of dignity. Much of the region has fallen back under renewed authoritarianism and it has become clear that Islamists cannot be saviors. Their utopia, which promised salvation in return for adherence, has failed; and the other, democratic, utopia of the Arab Spring did not materialize.

Arab citizens have retained their desire for faith, although they are now ‘anti-clerical’ in repudiating authorities that claim to interpret that faith. Arabs are now alienated by any instrumentalizing of the sacred or the idea that figures such as kings, or political groups such as Islamists, or institutions such as state-appointed ulama (juristic experts), inherently command sacred status and deserve obedience or awe. The popular rejection of sacredness means the end of the legacy of the Iranian revolution and the loss of Islamism’s luster…

…The very idea of ‘moderation’ is inherently autocratic because it demands dictating the boundaries of religious discourse. The true goal should be not moderate Islam but enlightened Islam. Enlightenment requires critical thinking, and that is the supreme enemy of authoritarianism.

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An Excellent Detailed Analysis – 2018 State Legislative Elections 2018

Democrats emerged from the midterm election with a net gain in state government trifectas—where one political party holds the governorship, a majority in the state senate, and a majority in the state house in a state’s government. Despite this, Republicans still retain a net advantage of at least eight trifectas over Democrats. One gubernatorial race is too close to call: Georgia.

The new trifecta count stands at 14 Democratic, 22 Republican, 13 divided, and Georgia left to be decided based on the governor’s race. Entering the 2018 midterm election, Republicans had a +14 state trifecta lead: of 34 states with trifectas, 26 were Republican and eight were Democratic. But after the votes were counted, Democrats increased their trifecta total with a net gain of six, and Republicans declined to 22 trifectas (a net loss of four so far). States with divided government (i.e., no trifecta for either major party) declined to 13.

This outcome is similar to the trifecta balance following the 2014 midterm election, which left Republicans with 24 trifectas, Democrats with 13, and 13 states with no trifecta advantage for either major party.

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The 2018 Map Looked A Lot Like 2012… And That Got Me Thinking About 2020

With Democrats having won the House but not the Senate on Tuesday — and with President Trump still in the White House — we’re headed for two years of divided government. That doesn’t mean there won’t be news, like … oh, say, the president firing the attorney general the day after the election.

But it does mean that pretty much every political battle is going to be pitched with an eye toward 2020. And 2020 will be a unique year in that the House, Senate and presidency are all potentially in play.1 How the presidency goes is anybody’s guess. But Trump took advantage of the Electoral College last time around, winning the tipping-point state (Wisconsin) by about 1 percentage point even though he lost the popular vote by 2 percentage points. If Trump has the same edge in 2020, that could go a long way toward winning him a second term.

The thing is, though, that the Electoral College advantage is historically pretty ephemeral. Relatively subtle changes in political conditions can make the Electoral College go from helping you to hurting you. In 2008 and 2012, for example, the Electoral College worked toward Democrats’ benefit, as Barack Obama would likely have won it in the event of a popular vote tie.

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